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/2014/mar/25/europes-new-nuclear-experience-casts-a-shadow-over-hinkley | Europe's new nuclear experience casts a shadow over Hinkley | Peter Wynn Kirby | With two new UK reactors planned at Hinkley Point C in Somerset and three years after the meltdowns at Fukushima in Japan, it is worth considering whether the design, procurement, construction, and management of nuclear power plants is sufficiently reliable to allay public concern over radiation and value for money. In the case of the reactor design chosen for Hinkley C, the French-designed European Pressurised Reactor (EPR), there is not yet a finished power plant to judge by. The two plants closest to completion, in Finland and France, have been plagued by astonishing cost overruns and construction delays, along with a litany of complaints over design flaws, poor quality control, and construction lapses. When construction on Finland’s Olkiluoto 3 began in 2005, French nuclear company Areva had promised to be finished by summer 2009 – a record time for a prototype nuclear reactor. Rare is the nuclear commission that doesn’t fall at least somewhat behind schedule, but fundamental problems with poorly trained subcontractors pouring substandard concrete for essential structures and improperly welded reactor containment suggested systemic problems with the quality standards and much-invoked "safety culture" at Areva. The EPR’s automatic control system and safety system, by Siemens, also proved insufficiently robust. In 2009, nuclear safety regulators in Britain, Finland, and France jointly released a report judging the safety system to be insufficiently independent from the automatic control system, sending Areva back to the drawing board. This means that the EPR design selected for Hinkley C is not actually a finished product – one key component remains in development. It is also troubling to consider that the conventional nuclear risk assessment carried out for Hinkley C is generally understood to be structurally limited when it comes to "beyond design-based" factors, ie the cascading series of problems that characterise failures of highly integrated complex systems in nuclear plants as seen in all the major accidents at Three-Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima. Originally commissioned at €3bn, the cost of the Olkiluoto 3 in Finland has ballooned to an estimated €8.5bn. Amid the finger-pointing between Areva and Finnish electricity provider Teollisuuden Voima Oy (TVO), with each suing the other for losses as a result of the delays and other problems (€2.7 and €1.8bn, respectively), Areva has apparently not submitted a revised schedule and did not renew contracts for 50 work foremen at the site in February, when work all but stopped for most of the month. With all the mounting setbacks, no one involved in the project dares to predict when the plant will actually come online, but Finnish media sources estimate its completion date will have slipped from 2009 to 2018, or perhaps even as late as 2020. Areva dismisses these hitches as a "Finnish problem" stemming from the travails of a difficult client, so it is fair to look at the only other European-based EPR project, in Flamanville in northern France. France is perhaps one of the most pro-nuclear places in the world to build a reactor, with about 75% of the country's electricity already generated from the atom. But Flamanville is also years behind schedule and far over budget. Work started in 2007, yet similar problems with questionable quality control and design issues have dragged the completion date into 2016 (this for a project originally intended to last 4.5 years). The final bill for Flamanville is estimated to reach €8.5bn – exactly the same as the upwardly revised cost of Olkiluoto. Against this desultory backdrop, it is instructive to note that in policy circles, EPR also stands for Extended Producer Responsibility, the concept that the manufacturer of a smartphone, for example, should be responsible for recycling the handset when discarded. This policy, which is law in the EU and in Japan, not only limits environmental fallout but creates efficiencies as firms design products to be easier and safer to recycle. By contrast, the nuclear sector seems to represent the opposite pole of the continuum, with little or no "extended responsibility" to be found. Politicians and utilities rarely take proper responsibility for mishaps during construction and operation, nor for radiation leaks, nor the decommissioning of irradiated components at "end of life", nor for the nuclear waste that accumulates. With the UK ready to embark on new EPR reactors – should the EU even approve the deal struck between EDF and the government – developments at Olkiluoto and Flamanville will continue to cast a long shadow over Hinkley C. • Peter Wynn Kirby is a nuclear and environmental specialist at the University of Oxford. | ['environment/nuclearpower', 'environment/environment', 'world/europe-news', 'world/world', 'world/france', 'world/finland', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'tone/comment', 'profile/peter-wynn-kirby'] | environment/nuclearpower | ENERGY | 2014-03-25T09:58:10Z | true | ENERGY |
politics/2018/may/16/uk-missing-deadlines-for-post-brexit-nuclear-safeguards-leak-shows | UK missing deadlines for post-Brexit nuclear safeguards, leak shows | Brexit deadlines have put the supply of nuclear raw material for power stations at risk, a leaked government document has suggested. The document, obtained by Sky News, shows that the UK is already missing critical deadlines to put full safeguards in place to keep the flow of components and raw material needed to fabricate nuclear fuel after Brexit. The UK does not produce uranium. It must have its own safety measures in place, including a governing body to regulate the safe transport of the raw material, once it leaves the European safeguarding body Euroatom after Brexit. Five “high-level risks” in setting up this government body have been identified by the UK’s Office for Nuclear Regulation, according to an internal “risk register” paper obtained by Sky. Work on a new IT system, which should have started by the end of March, is already behind and the deadline has already been “irretrievable lost”, the document says. The other four areas categorised as “red” on a red, amber, green (RAG) project management ranking including recruitment, lack of training for inspectors and funding. Failure to arrange the “comprehensive handover” of hardware from Euratom are also cited in the document. The document was leaked just days after the chief executive of the Nuclear Industry Association, Tom Greatrex, warned that Britain could have a period with no nuclear fuel unless the safeguards were in place in time. “Whilst you may have a stock of raw material to be able to produce fuel. Eventually, you are going to be in the position where you use that up,” said Greatrex. He told Sky News the Brexit decision had created “a very exacting timetable” to set up the independent British body and there was “no shortcut” to achieve it. Scientists have warned that British power stations may not be able to source nuclear fuel if it cannot be legally transported across borders. There have also been reports that shipment of medical isotopes used in scans and cancer treatment could be jeopardised. “We could end up in a situation where you have got a perfectly well-functioning fleet of nuclear power stations but we haven’t got enough fuel ... We don’t want to end up in the position where we have got power stations and haven’t got fuel,” Greatrex told reporters on Monday. The government said the UK’s ability to import medical radioisotopes from Europe and the rest of the world would not be affected by Brexit as they are not subject to international safeguards. A spokesman for the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy said it had made “significant progress in preparing to leave Euratom to ensure safeguards are in place from day one”. “The nuclear safeguards bill is making good progress through parliament and we continue to work closely with the Office for Nuclear Regulation to ensure we continue to have a robust regime in place.” The spokesman added that the UK had signed a nuclear cooperation agreement with the US, which it was hoped would be the first of a series of deals to ensure no disruption to the nuclear supply chain. | ['politics/eu-referendum', 'environment/nuclearpower', 'uk/uk', 'world/eu', 'environment/energy', 'politics/foreignpolicy', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/lisaocarroll', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-home-news'] | environment/nuclearpower | ENERGY | 2018-05-16T11:03:38Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/2012/jul/25/greenland-glacier-bridge-destroyed-video | Meltwater from Greenland glacier wipes out key crossing | The gust of warm air that caused the unprecedented thaw in Greenland's surface ice also appears to have caused unusually high run-off from a glacier, wiping out a crossing near a key research and transport hub. Scientists who fly in Kangerlussuaq, near the western edge of the ice sheet, have been keeping an eye on the Watson River bridge for years. The bridge dates from the 1950s, but wasn't built for the magnitude of spring and summer melt of the last 12 years or so, said Jason Box, a glaciologist at Ohio State University who returned on Tuesday from a three-week stint in Greenland. "The midsummer floods have been growing and threatening this bridge and finally took it out," he said. "It washed out roads and took out a tractor." The river is fed by the nearby Russell glacier, which sits just outside of town. Unlike other glaciers, which are exposed to the warming ocean waters, it sits entirely on land. Box, who works extensively in Greenland, has publicly warned that the ice melt is accelerating, in part because the snow and ice are losing their reflective capabilities. It was T-shirt weather some days in Greenland this month, he said. Such warms days were not unheard of though, he added. | ['environment/glaciers', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/poles', 'world/greenland', 'environment/environment', 'tone/news', 'environment/sea-ice', 'type/article', 'profile/suzannegoldenberg'] | environment/poles | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2012-07-25T22:05:00Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2019/sep/26/sydney-desalination-plant-to-double-in-size-as-dams-approach-critical-level | Sydney desalination plant to double in size as dams approach critical level | Sydney’s desalination plant will double in size as the city’s water supply approaches the critical threshold in dam levels. The top bureaucrat who oversees water in the NSW Department of Planning, Industry and Environment, Jim Bentley, told a Committee for the Economic Development of Australia (Ceda) lunch in Sydney, that planning for the expansion had now begun. He also said Sydney and other cities needed to be having a discussion about when they would reach Day Zero – the day when they would run out of water, as Cape Town almost did – in order to understand what was happening and to motivate discussions about solutions. He later clarified that he did not believe Sydney was on the verge of such a scenario. “I don’t want people to leave here thinking we are at a Cape Town situation, we are far from that. But we could be in that situation in the future,” he said. “But there are places in NSW that are somewhat more dire and the government is working with those councils.” For Sydney, the NSW government has opted for more desalination. “We have taken the decision to begin the planning for the expansion of the desalination plant. There will be other schemes for Sydney, for the Hunter and other parts of NSW,” Bentley said. “I will say the D word”, he said. “We will be investing in dams, we will be investing in desalination, but also we must work on the adaptive side of the equation: efficiency and using the great resource that is now called waste water.” The decision on more desalination plants comes as the prime minister, Scott Morrison, prepares to make a major announcement about additional funding for dams. Sign up to receive the top stories from Guardian Australia every morning Funding for a list of dams in drought-affected communities was revealed by Nine News on Tuesday night, including the Mole River dam on the border of NSW and Queensland, Dungowan near Tamworth, and Wyangala in central-west NSW. Morrison will also announce $16m in funding for “managed aquifer recharge” to boost the supply of water in Dubbo, Cobar and Nyngan. This is similar to Perth, where purified wastewater is put back into the aquifer before being extracted for town supplies. The go-ahead for the expansion of the desalination plant in Sydney had been given “in anticipation that water shortages will become the norm in the expanding city,” Bentley said. The current desalination plant is now producing 15% of Sydney’s water supply, or 250m litres a day. The plan is to double the plant, to provide 30% of Sydney’s water. Sufficient intake piping is already in place for the expanded plant and the site prepared, which should allow a swift build of the additional structure to house the new plant. Bentley also flagged the need for further community discussion about using waste water as either potable water or a secondary source of water through additional pipes to new houses. Putting recycled water directly into the dam system proved a bridge too far for the Carr government when it considered options to deal with the last drought. It opted for desalination instead. However, a number of cities now recycle their sewage into the drinking water system, usually diluted in dams and rivers first, including California, Singapore and London. Perth injects it back into the aquifer before reuse. Kevin Werksman, global water markets leader at engineering consultancy Aurecon, said paleontological records showed that it was possible to have 30-year droughts, which is why recycling needed to be considered. He said treating waste water to drinking standard was one third to 50% cheaper than desalination. Bentley said reuse needed to be discussed with the community and did not necessarily mean putting it into the drinking water supply. He said recycled water could potentially be used to achieve the goal of growing a million more trees in Sydney to reduce the “heat island” effects of a large city. The managing director of South East Water in Victoria, Terry Benson, described how her company was collaborating on a new development, Aquarevo, which uses a community waste-water treatment plant to provide a second source of water to houses. Each house is also connected to smart technology to allow residents to monitor their water and energy use and the weather. Rainwater tanks empty when it is going to rain significantly in order to double as stormwater reservoirs, she said. | ['environment/water', 'australia-news/new-south-wales', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'environment/drought', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/anne-davies', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/drought | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2019-09-25T18:00:38Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2020/jul/21/legal-challenge-against-uk-government-green-recovery-plans | Campaigners launch legal challenge against UK's green recovery plans | Climate campaigners have launched a formal legal challenge against the government’s green recovery plans, claiming they are inadequate and “clearly unlawful” in light of the UK’s obligations to reduce emissions. Plan B, the pressure group that successfully challenged the UK government over its plans to expand Heathrow, sent a “pre-action” letter to the prime minister and the chancellor on Tuesday, saying the government was missing an historic opportunity to avoid catastrophe. Tim Crosland, the director of Plan B, said: “The government can either follow the scientific and economic advice and take a decisive step towards a cleaner, fairer and more sustainable economy, creating vast number of new jobs – or it can ignore that advice by prioritising its corporate sponsors and locking us into the path to climate breakdown and a future that is grim beyond words. “It seems that Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings are set on choosing the second option, but we can’t let that happen.” The chancellor, Rishi Sunak, set out £3bn of “green spending” this month, focusing on improving energy efficiency in homes and public buildings. The plan was widely criticised by green groups. Plan B points out the sum was dwarfed by the billions committed to airlines and carmakers and funding for fossil fuels in the recovery programme. It was also only a fraction of the money allocated to “green recovery programmes” in other European countries. Tuesday’s letter is the next stage in the legal challenge which started at the beginning of the month. Then, Plan B said: “The proposed approach is quite clearly unlawful … it is no more than a fig leaf for the government’s new deal for polluters.” It gave the government until 4 August to respond. The government did not respond to the original letter. At the time, a spokesperson defended the package and said the government “continued to take our environmental responsibilities seriously and remain committed to meeting our climate change and wider environmental targets, including net zero [greenhouse gas emissions] by 2050”. Environmentalists argue that the UK’s recovery plans fail to take account of its obligations under the 2015 Paris agreement and the UK’s own net zero 2050 emissions target. Lawyers for green campaigners say the Heathrow case – in which the government’s approval of a third runway was deemed unlawful by judges because it failed to take into account the UK’s obligations under the Paris agreement – set a precedent that forces ministers to assess the impact of their Covid-19 stimulus plans on the climate crisis. | ['environment/climate-crisis', 'business/economic-recovery', 'politics/economy', 'world/coronavirus-outbreak', 'business/business', 'business/economics', 'politics/politics', 'environment/environment', 'environment/activism', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/matthewtaylor', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-home-news'] | environment/activism | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM | 2020-07-21T13:00:43Z | true | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM |
environment/2023/oct/27/hurricane-otis-the-eastern-pacifics-first-inland-category-5-storm | Hurricane Otis hits Mexico and continues with category 5 intensity | On Wednesday, Hurricane Otis rapidly developed across the eastern Pacific before making landfall near Acapulco in southern Mexico as a category 5 hurricane with wind speeds estimated at about 165mph. This marked the first time in recorded history that the eastern Pacific has had such a strong hurricane make landfall and continue with category-5 intensity, surpassing Hurricane Patricia in 2015, which had wind speeds of about 150mph after it struck land. The intensity and track of Otis were notably different from the forecasts provided by the US National Hurricane Center (NHC), with models initially having suggested that Otis would move westwards as a tropical storm when it first formed three days before making landfall. Even 24 hours before the hurricane reached category 5 status, the NHC only predicted peak winds of about 70mph. However, Otis rapidly intensified en route to making landfall in Mexico, with winds increasing by about 70mph in just 12 hours, leaving little time for preparations to be made. This rapid intensification was one of the largest on record in the eastern Pacific and was fuelled by high ocean temperatures and reduced wind shear, which refers to a change in wind speed or direction with a change in height. The rapid and unexpected intensification of Otis was not accurately captured by weather models, in part because of limited data availability, with no radar available in the area it made landfall and only one flight taking place to make observations. Acapulco is home to more than 1 million people. At the time of writing, authorities had confirmed 27 deaths related to Hurricane Otis, with four people still missing. Meanwhile, Tropical Cyclone Tej brought extreme rainfall and strong winds to several regions in Yemen and Oman earlier this week. On Monday 23 October, the cyclone had wind speeds of about 85mph, equivalent to a category 1 hurricane, before it made landfall across eastern parts of Yemen during the early hours of the morning on Tuesday. The storm then weakened rapidly as it moved into cooler and drier air over the Arabian peninsula. It still brought extreme rainfall totals to parts of Yemen and Oman, with Al Ghaydah in eastern Yemen recording 432mm (17in) of rainfall – the equivalent of more than five years’ worth of rain for the region – in 24 hours. The heavy rainfall and strong winds have resulted in flooding in this normally arid region. | ['environment/series/weather-tracker', 'world/hurricanes', 'weather/mexico', 'world/extreme-weather', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-weather'] | world/hurricanes | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2023-10-27T10:56:04Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2020/jun/22/reusable-containers-safe-during-covid-19-pandemic-say-experts | Reusable containers safe during Covid-19 pandemic, say experts | More than 100 scientists will publish a signed statement on Monday to reassure the public that reusable containers are safe during the Covid-19 pandemic. Amid fears that the environmental battle to reduce single-use plastic waste is losing ground over fears of virus contamination, the 119 scientists from 18 countries say reuseable containers do not increase the chance of virus transmission. Some cafes have stopped accepting reusable cups during the pandemic, raising fears that the push for sustainable and reusable packaging is being set back. Campaigners have also recently accused the plastic industry of exploiting the crisis to lobby against bans on single-use plastics. The statement by the scientists, who include epidemiologists, virologists, biologists, chemists and doctors, says that based on the best available science and guidance from public health professionals, reusable systems can be used safely by employing basic hygiene. Charlotte K Williams, a professor of chemistry at Oxford University and one of the signatories, said: “I hope we can come out of the Covid-19 crisis more determined than ever to solve the pernicious problems associated with plastics in the environment. “In terms of the general public’s response to the Covid crisis, we should make every attempt to avoid over-consumption of single-use plastics, particularly in applications like packaging.” Evidence indicates that the virus spreads primarily from inhaling aerosolised droplets, rather than through contact with surfaces, the scientists say. Studies show the virus can remain infectious on surfaces for varying times depending on the material, so in order to prevent transmission as much as possible consumers should assume that any surface in a public space – reusable or disposable – could be contaminated with the virus. Scientists’ advice for consumers is to wash reusable containers thoroughly with hot water and detergent or soap. Nina Schrank, a campaigner at Greenpeace UK, said: “More and more of us own reusable cups and bottles to cut down on throwaway plastic and protect our wildlife, seas and rivers. Covid-19 has changed many of our routines, so it’s great that more than 100 experts have reassured us that reusable containers can be safe for food, drinks and other groceries during the pandemic, if washed properly. “ A ban on single-use plastics will come into force in Europe next year, but there are concerns the packaging industry is using the pandemic to push back against it. The Foodservice Packaging Association (FPA) has put pressure on the Welsh government to delay its ban, with warnings that not doing so would compromise hygiene. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has moved its ban on single-use plastic items back to October because of the challenges of the pandemic, but says it is still determined to bring it in. | ['environment/recycling', 'world/coronavirus-outbreak', 'tone/news', 'type/article', 'environment/plastic', 'environment/plastic-bags', 'environment/environment', 'world/world', 'environment/waste', 'profile/sandralaville', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-home-news'] | environment/recycling | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2020-06-22T05:00:37Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
global-development/poverty-matters/2012/jun/15/rio20-sustainable-development-goals | Rio+20's sustainable development goals should reflect today's world | Duncan Green | I attended an expert panel discussion recently on the sustainable development goals (SDGs). Originating in a proposal by the Colombian government for what comes after 2015, when most of the millennium development goals expire, some initial progress on the SDGs is increasingly seen as the most likely win from a forlorn-looking Earth summit in Rio. The essence of the proposal is that global goals help focus leaders' attention and galvanise aid, but that – this time round – they need to bring together development and environment into a single set of targets. The most likely result in Rio is a paragraph or two in the final summit document, kicking off months or even years of talks to design and approve a new set of goals before the MDGs reach their sell-by date. But I'm worried that much of the discussion is taking place in a political vacuum, ignoring the political and economic context that will shape any decision and opting instead for the comforting but illusory safety of wonkish debates about indicators and metrics. Here's the gist of my pitch to the meeting. First, the context is totally different to the late 1990s, when the MDGs were agreed. The rich countries are in recession and there is a presidential election campaign in the US; there is no prospect of EU leadership to rival that shown by the Utstein group and (later) the UK and US governments in the late 90s; there is G-zero drift (the idea that instead of the G8 or G20 being in charge, no one is) at the multilateral level, contrasting with post-cold war dynamism in the 90s; and most of the world's poor now live in middle-income countries (which means domestic redistribution could have a big impact on reducing poverty). Any agreement is likely to be more shock-driven, in terms of needing crises (political or economic) to generate the necessary momentum for agreement and implementation. Second, the MDGs were largely about increasing the quantity and quality of aid. That is an implausible mission in the next decade. World Bank research on the impact of previous banking crises on donor flows shows that aid typically rises for a couple of years and then falls off a cliff, not returning to its former levels for 15 years. The latest global aid numbers suggest a repeat of that pattern could be under way, so goals and targets are unlikely to have the same impact this time around. Third, we therefore need to think about what instruments have historically been born out of, or worked in, a downturn. These include: • Long-term norm setting. • New sources of revenue – whether international or national – such as the financial transactions tax, closing down tax havens, increased royalties from natural resources, or domestic tax reform. • The re-regulation of financial sectors and introduction of social safety nets (following the example set, for instance, by the New Deal programme established in the US after the Great Depression). • Imposing reporting requirements on governments and providing access to good quality data, so that civil society groups and other movements can put pressure on governments. • Low-cost forms of pressure, for instance league tables, or peer reviews that use name-and-shame tactics to create a race to the top between neighbours and rivals. In short, I think the most sensible approach to the SDGs is to aim for low-cost commitments that will gain traction with national governments, forcing them to pay increased attention to poverty eradication and sustainability. Using Claire Melamed's handy typology, that means agreeing a big bullseye end goal such as zero poverty, universal basic services or sustainability. That could build on Kate Raworth's "doughnut" framework, which – as outlined in the clip below – combines development goals and planetary boundaries. In addition, agreements on data and process should be reached to put in place the enabling conditions for future progress. Finally, and hardest to pin down, is it possible to create mechanisms that allow governments, the multilateral system, or citizens to respond to shocks by accelerating progress? What this would involve is unclear, but the MDG-type construct is very incremental, assuming a process of steady development, whereas much social progress comes during and after shocks; could that be reflected in the SDGs in some way? One other thought: a dozen years have passed since the World Bank' groundbreaking Voices of the Poor study, which drew on feedback from more than 60,000 poor people in 60 countries and changed our understanding of the nature of poverty. Could it be agreed in Rio that the moment has come for a repeat, to see how much has changed or remained the same? This is all light years away from the kind of SDG lists circulating. My concern is that this is more due to intellectual inertia (let's take the MDGs and add some more) than a real attempt to understand the possibilities in the current political and economic context. | ['global-development/poverty-matters', 'global-development/environmental-sustainability', 'global-development/future-of-development', 'global-development/millennium-development-goals', 'global-development/global-development', 'environment/rio-20-earth-summit', 'environment/global-climate-talks', 'environment/sustainable-development', 'environment/environment', 'tone/blog', 'global-development/sustainable-development-goals', 'type/article', 'profile/duncan-green'] | environment/sustainable-development | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2012-06-15T14:13:29Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
sustainable-business/2015/jun/29/a-seven-step-guide-to-net-positive | A seven step guide to net positive | 1. Net positive is about giving more than you take “Net positive simply means putting more back into the environment or society than you take out,” says Forum for the Future’s chief executive, Sally Uren. It aims to restore or regenerate ecological systems, explains Steve Downing, director of the Henley Centre for Sustainable Enterprise. This is different from eco-efficiency, which simply slows down the decline in ecological capital, and closed-loop systems, which only prevent further ecological decline. 2. Boundaries are important Solitaire Townsend, co-founder of Futerra explains that the ultimate benchmark for net positive strategies are planetary boundaries (the boundaries within which humanity can continue to develop and thrive) and that goals and targets should always be developed within that framework. Uren adds: “If your biggest impacts are societal, than that’s where you should focus. However, the principles that we have developed tell us that there should be no irreplaceable natural losses. A big positive societal impact then isn’t justified at the expense of a large negative environmental one.” 3. It isn’t just repackaged CSR Net positive is far more transformative and ambitious than corporate social responsibility. It’s not just about reducing impacts here and there, rather it requires a systems-based approach and the involvement of the entire business. It also allows businesses to engage employees and customers with a positive message around sustainability, rather than one of reduction. “When we advocate CSR, we’re often perceived as saying that business is inherently bad,” says sustainability consultant Sarah Holloway. “But net positive allows those who believe business is a force for good to get excited about sustainability.” While it’s possible for a tobacco company to claim it is the most sustainable of its competitors, it should be impossible to claim it is net positive, says Townsend. 4. Greenwash is difficult Genuinely becoming net positive requires companies to focus on their main areas of impact. Dax Lovegrove, director of sustainability and innovation at home improvement retailer Kingfisher, says the company’s main impact is forests, so it aims to create more forest than it uses. Its plan to become net positive includes sourcing timber responsibly, working with key suppliers and engaging governments in improving EU timber regulations. There will always be greenwashers who exploit sustainability for marketing purposes, but Lovegrove says dubious off-setting initiatives under the guise of net positive will not go unnoticed. “Most of us can spot when a company is on the money and when it is avoiding the issues … Those largely seen as doing little on sustainability, such as those in the fossil fuel industries, would do well to avoid claiming to have net positive commitments,” he says. For Gabi Zedlmayer, vice president and chief progress officer at IT giant HP, a set of internationally agreed upon standards for offsets would help prevent their use for window-dressing. 5. Fossil fuels and gambling are out If fossil fuel companies can’t be net positive, what about other controversial businesses, such as alcohol and gambling? Bill Baue, co-founder of Sustainability Context, says some business models are predicated on a net negative impact and would have a difficult time justifying the consequences of their products and services. Uren also struggles with gambling but doesn’t write off alcohol companies. “You could envisage a micro-brewery, nestled in a close-knit community, powered off renewable energy, with 100% sustainable sourcing, having a net positive impact.” 6. It can be a great springboard for entrepreneurs Net positive feels like a large corporate agenda, but it’s also a great starting point for budding entrepreneurs. One example is condom brand Sustain, which according to its founder is focused on challenging negative attitudes to condoms among young American women. For small and medium enterprises it can be harder to get the intellectual distance needed to critique your own business model, says Bruce Davis, joint managing director at renewables investment vehicle Abundance Generation. “I think that net positive SMEs are probably born rather than re-made,” he says. 7. Profit isn’t the measure of success “We are very comfortable ‘borrowing’ from our future selves to finance our present wellbeing and less comfortable investing in others’ future wellbeing,” says Davis. In the future, instead of success being defined in terms of profit, as it is in the selfish shareholder model, the success of a business will be measured by its net positive impact. | ['sustainable-business/series/business-and-wellbeing', 'sustainable-business/sustainable-business', 'environment/corporatesocialresponsibility', 'business/business', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tone/sponsoredfeatures', 'profile/hannah-gould'] | environment/corporatesocialresponsibility | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2015-06-29T15:58:29Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
commentisfree/2018/feb/28/i-love-salvaging-items-from-the-street-thats-how-i-got-my-new-dryer | I love salvaging items from the street. That's how I got my new dryer | Martin Farrer | A few months ago our clothes dryer stopped working. We didn’t use it very much but they’re handy to have if the domestic engineering has gone awry and you need to dry some socks or school uniforms in a hurry. The problem with the dryer was that the door wouldn’t close properly. My first instinct was to fix it but I could only get it to work if I propped against it an extremely heavy object like a bag of soil. Clearly not a long-term solution – I’ll just have to get a new one, I thought. But then a few days later I spotted a dryer that had been left outside someone’s house for the council to pick-up. I inspected it and it looked OK. It still had the cable and plug, which was promising, and it didn’t look broken ... So, I stuck it in the car and took it home. When I plugged it in, of course, it was dead. But a quick google of the model number revealed all manner of advice. I could see straight away just from the search results that this particular model has a recurring problem with the drive belt coming off. All I had to do, the chat boards told me, was unscrew a panel on the back and clip the belt back on. Pretty straightforward. And it worked. Even though the belt still occasionally comes off, it’s very satisfying to see it functioning. Buoyed by this triumph, I doubled down when I found a discarded microwave. The one in the kitchen was on the blink so I thought it might come in handy. It was clean and worked perfectly well. Not long afterwards, ours gave up the ghost for good so the “new” one was duly installed. I know I’m not the only person who finds pleasure in salvaging such things. Soon after moving into our house, we decided that an old wardrobe – itself rescued from the streets of London – was surplus to requirements and it was put out in the lane. It was gone the next morning. A few days later, our neighbour opened up his garage and I thought I spotted a familiar-looking piece of furniture: there was our old wardrobe in the corner of his garage. We have since teamed up on a salvaging project after his wife spotted an old table football set in the street when she was walking the dog late one Sunday night. We carried it back and after a bit of tightening up here, and a bit of WD40 there, you can have a decent game. Very satisfying. It’s not the money saved that I find so satisfying so much as the avoidance of waste. Waste has always bothered me, possibly a deep-seated result of having parents who grew up in the 1930s Depression. My dad was always fiddling about with things to fix them and so if he were alive today he would be amazed at what people chuck out. He’d barely be able to get down the street without collecting something because, in these times of super-abundance, the chucker-outers outnumber the salvagers. What’s the best household item you’ve ever found or recycled? Tell us in the comments below. | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'commentisfree/series/openthread', 'environment/recycling', 'environment/waste', 'type/article', 'tone/comment', 'profile/martinfarrer', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-opinion'] | environment/waste | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2018-02-28T01:13:37Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
environment/2016/aug/22/why-air-conditioning-vicious-circle-weatherwatch | Why air conditioning is a vicious circle | Air conditioning was a luxury in Britain 40 years ago, but the long hot summer of 1976 changed that. The scorching heat that summer lasted two months and most people sweated it out indoors with only open windows and electric fans for ventilation. After that, air conditioning no longer seemed so extravagant and its popularity soared. Air conditioners consume huge amounts of energy, though, and that’s adding to climate change. The US uses as much electricity to keep buildings cool as the whole of Africa uses for all its electrical needs. That power largely comes from polluting power stations, adding to the warmer climate. And air-conditioning in vehicles burns more fuel, making even more greenhouse gases. With the demand for air conditioning rising worldwide, it’s reckoned that in around 30 years’ time more energy could be used for cooling than for heating. Air conditioning also pumps out heat straight into the atmosphere. Like a fridge, it takes heat from the inside of a building or car, then transfers it to the warm outside. That extra heat makes cities hotter, raising night-time temperatures by up to 2C, which then encourages people to turn up their air conditioning even higher. And there’s another sting to keeping cool. Air conditioning systems also use powerful greenhouse gases called hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), thousands of times more potent than carbon dioxide. These gases leak out into the atmosphere, especially from vehicles, and global emissions of HFCs rose by more than half between 2007 and 2012, adding to the burden of climate change even more. And as the climate grows hotter, there’s more need to stay cool. It’s a vicious circle. | ['environment/climate-crisis', 'news/series/weatherwatch', 'science/scienceofclimatechange', 'world/world', 'uk/uk', 'technology/technology', 'science/meteorology', 'environment/summer', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/jeremy-plester', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-weather'] | news/series/weatherwatch | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2016-08-22T20:30:13Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
uk-news/undercover-with-paul-lewis-and-rob-evans/2013/nov/20/undercover-police-and-policing-ukcrime | Police face problems in recruiting informants in political groups | Guardian Undercover Blog | There seems to be an endlessly rich list of names for informers. Rat, squealer, snitch, tout and snout are some that come easily to mind. There have been as many as 200 names dating back to the seventeeth century, according to this account. Many are clearly derogatory, others colourful. The origins of the names are often obscure. There are for instance two possible explanations for a grass. Perhaps it came from the song, Whispering Grass, or possibly from the rhyming slang of grasshopper, meaning shopper or even copper. Whatever term is used, the practice of giving inside information about colleagues, comrades, friends and even lovers to the authorities has been around for a very long time. Last week, a little sunlight was let into the hidden world of informants in political campaigns. The Guardian revealed how police had tried to recruit a young activist to grass on the political activities of students and protesters in Cambridge. It was an offer he refused. There were some who pointed out that the recruitment of informers is not new (see for example in the comments section of the story about the Cambridgeshire police and elsewhere). There is little doubt about that. It is a traditional technique that has been routinely exploited by the British police for decades. Since its inception in the 1880s, Special Branch officers have relied on informers within political groups to slip them information. More recently, campaigners from the 1960s and 1970s onwards have regularly told tales of how they have been approached by police to inform on their friends and fellow protesters. (If police have asked you to become an informant, I would be interested to hear from you). A few of these approaches were publicised in the media from time to time. But the modern era has brought an important change. Campaigners now have the technology to turn the tables on the police and surreptitiously record the meetings at which the police officers are trying to recruit them. An early example of this came four years ago when Tilly Gifford, an activist in the environmental Plane Stupid campaign, exposed an attempt by Scottish police to recruit her. You can read how she did it here, here and here, and listen to the tapes of the recruitment pitch here. Clearly taping these types of approaches have a bigger impact in the media as the public can hear for themselves that it has happened, and they do not have to rely on the word of the activists. Concealed recording devices pose a problem for the police as the activists have a powerful weapon to expose, and potentially, curb the recruitment of informers from within their midst. For the police, approaching any activist to become an informant is a gamble, as a certain percentage are always going to say no and talk to their friends about it. It is also an occupational hazard, as other activists may go a step further and secrete a recording device in their clothes, and then pass the results on to the media. This was what happened in last week's story about the Cambridge students and protesters - you can hear the clips here, here, here, here and here. It appears that when police are trying to recruit an activist, they probe the would-be informants to see if they are wearing recording devices. Remarkably in this tape recorded by Gifford in 2009, a police officer actually asks her if she is recording the exchanges with him, but still carries on trying to persuade her to become an informant. | ['uk/undercover-with-paul-lewis-and-rob-evans', 'tone/blog', 'uk/undercover-police-and-policing', 'uk/ukcrime', 'world/surveillance', 'education/education', 'education/higher-education', 'uk/metropolitan-police', 'law/uk-civil-liberties', 'education/cambridgeuniversity', 'uk/police', 'environment/activism', 'type/article', 'profile/robevans'] | environment/activism | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM | 2013-11-20T12:12:31Z | true | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM |
environment/2013/sep/06/wind-power-records-broken | Wind power generation at record levels in four Australian states | Wind energy records were broken in four states in August, according to new figures, as the Coalition gears up to place the wind power industry under greater scrutiny should it win power on Saturday. The Clean Energy Council said that the amount of power produced by Australia’s wind farms in August was enough to power Sydney Opera House for the next 57 years. South Australia, which has led the way in wind energy, was again the frontrunner, deriving 38% of its power from the wind last month, well above its previous record of 31%. Tasmania, at 11%, Victoria, at 7.9%, and NSW, at 1.8%, also broke their respective state records for share of power derived from wind during August. The total of 1,024 gigawatt hours generated by wind farms was enough to make more than 6bn toasted sandwiches, according to the Clean Energy Council. “Australia’s renewable energy target is supporting projects that generate jobs and investment, as well as clean energy,” said Russell Marsh, policy director at the council. “The new Macarthur wind farm in western Victoria is the largest in the southern hemisphere and provided a huge clean energy boost over the last month. “While New South Wales is behind some of the other states when it comes to wind power, it still enjoyed a record month and has massive potential to reap the job and investment benefits from encouraging clean energy,” Marsh said. The wind industry is set to come under the microscope should the Coalition win the election. This week, the opposition’s energy spokesman, Ian Macfarlane, said that there would be an investigation into the health impacts of wind farms. The Coalition also wants to compel wind farms to produce “real time” monitoring of wind turbine noise in response to claims, which aren’t backed by scientific evidence, that turbines are harmful to human health. The wind industry claims that the requirements would place “crippling” costs upon it. Various state laws have already hit wind farms, with Victoria banning the construction of a turbine within 2km of a residential dwelling. | ['environment/windpower', 'environment/energy', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'australia-news/coalition', 'tone/news', 'type/article', 'profile/oliver-milman'] | environment/windpower | ENERGY | 2013-09-06T07:30:18Z | true | ENERGY |
australia-news/2016/nov/04/grassfire-threatens-homes-western-sydney | Two arrested over bushfire threatening homes in western Sydney | Two teenagers have been arrested over a bushfire that has damaged properties in Sydney’s west. The blaze began near Vincent Road in the Llandilo area at 2pm on Friday and has since been downgraded to a watch and act. The teenagers had not yet been charged as of Friday afternoon. The New South Wales Rural Fire Service said water-bombing aircraft had been deployed and emergency warning messages sent to homes in the area. At least 200 firefighters were battling the blaze on Friday afternoon. The fast-moving fire was threatening homes earlier in the afternoon, with unconfirmed reports that at least one house had been lost. Emergency warnings were issued for residents in Cranebrook, Llandilo and Londonderry as huge plumes of smoke spread across neighbouring suburbs. Xavier College at Llandilo was evacuated, Channel Nine reported. | ['australia-news/sydney', 'australia-news/bushfires', 'world/wildfires', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | world/wildfires | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2016-11-04T07:01:45Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2021/nov/13/no-sharks-but-ive-seen-porpoises-the-rebirth-of-the-river-thames | ‘No sharks but I’ve seen porpoises’: the rebirth of the River Thames | The Thames shark hunt begins on a swirling golden brown river, where high above Battersea power station soars a speck that may be another awesome predator: a peregrine falcon. “I haven’t seen a shark but I’ve seen porpoises up the Thames and there were a couple of whales last year,” says Alfie Gardner, captain of one of the Thames Clipper Uber Boats that whisk commuters and tourists up and downriver. “We see a lot of seals. Near enough every day.” The 95 miles of the tidal Thames that snakes through Europe’s biggest city is full of life, according to a new survey by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL). Harbour and grey seals pop up for a reason: the Thames is home to more than 115 species of fish, and is a nursery for smelt, seabass and sharks – starry smooth-hound, tope and spurdog. Other remarkable sightings include a juvenile short-snouted seahorse at Greenwich and a juvenile minke whale, which was stranded near Teddington this spring. An informal shark safari via the scheduled riverboat service from the London Eye to North Greenwich starts with a promising display of common gulls, which perch on construction barges facing into the wind so their feathers won’t ruffle. The Thames does not look alluring and its brown waters are coloured by sediment animated by the tides. Who can tell what lies beneath? The party of visitors to the Tate Modern’s beach could probably say, if only we could understand them: this biodiversity hotspot contains two swans, four greylag geese and a gaggle of feral pigeons and gulls. As the riverboat cruises past the Tower of London, a cormorant hangs its wings out to dry like an enormous gothic bat. This fish-eating bird is another sign that there is food in the river. Beside the Old Thameside Inn there rolls a log: here is the Thames reborn as a Canadian mountain stream. Unfortunately, the rebirth of the Thames has met with several false dawns, and this may be another. Before 1800, 3,000 Atlantic salmon caught on the river would be taken to Billingsgate market each year. Then the Industrial Revolution poured everything from cyanide to sewage into the river, and Victorian engineer Joseph Bazalgette’s sewage system only shifted the pollution downstream to Beckton. In 1957, a survey conducted by the Natural History Museum made an incredible discovery: there were no fish left in the Thames. As the Guardian reported in 1959: “The tidal reaches of the Thames constitute a badly managed open sewer.” Sewage discharged at Beckton began to be treated in 1964, industrial pollution was controlled, and heavy industry retreated from the riverside. In 1974, the first salmon was caught on the Thames – in a power station intake 16 miles below Tower Bridge – since 1833. But a 32-year effort to restore salmon by restocking the Thames with young fish ended in failure in 2011. This week, ZSL’s survey found that the number of fish species in the tidal Thames has actually declined since the early 1990s. “It was a surprising decline,” says Alison Debney, ZSL’s conservation programme lead for wetland ecosystem recovery. ‘I’ve been spending the last 10 years telling everybody we’ve got all these fish and isn’t that great?” Scientists need to unpick the reasons for this decline, says Debney, which could be pollution combined with the climate crisis. There are positive increases in dissolved oxygen concentrations and less damagingly high phosphorus levels in the Thames but harmful nitrate concentrations continue to increase, and microplastics flow down the river at a rate of up to 94,000 pieces a second. Fish could be struggling with dramatic temperature changes: on average, summer temperatures in the upper tidal Thames have risen by 0.19C a year this century. According to Debney, this rise could be assisted by that old foe: treated sewage, which warms the river. Raw sewage also continues to be discharged into the Thames. More than 95% of these overflows should be captured by the Thames Tideway tunnel, a £3.9bn super-sewer due for completion in 2025. There’s no sign of a shark but river regulars say seals are more visible than ever. They like the Salt Quay pub in Rotherhithe – or at least the sand in front of it – and the shallows of Wandsworth. “As the river gets narrower, the seals seem to get bigger,” says Gardner. They are keeping their heads down on this particular river cruise. Finally, a creamy shape materialises in the water beside Deptford Creek. A seal? No, it’s an old football. The Guardian’s informal Thames safari species list Common gull: 550 Herring gull: 22 Mute swan: 13 Greylag geese: 4 Cormorant: 1 Black-headed gull: 1 Jackdaw: 2 Floating pieces of wood: 5 Plastic bottles: 1 Tennis balls: 1 Footballs: 1 Wild Green Wonders by Patrick Barkham (Guardian Faber, £14.99). To support The Guardian and Observer, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply. | ['environment/rivers', 'environment/sharks', 'uk/london', 'environment/marine-life', 'environment/environment', 'uk/uk', 'environment/wildlife', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'tone/features', 'profile/patrickbarkham', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/environmentnews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/marine-life | BIODIVERSITY | 2021-11-13T08:00:03Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
global-development/2013/oct/28/ethiopia-opens-africa-biggest-windfarm | Ethiopia opens Africa's biggest windfarm | A windfarm billed as the biggest in sub-Saharan Africa has been opened by Ethiopia's prime minister, Hailemariam Desalegn, a potentially crucial step for the continent's renewable energy industry. The €210m (£179m) Ashegoda windfarm consists of 84 hi-tech turbines towering above an arid region where villagers herd cattle and ride donkey-drawn carts as they have for generations. The project, outside Mekelle in Tigray state, about 475 miles north of the capital, Addis Ababa, has a capacity of 120MW and will produce about 400m KWh a year. It was completed in phases over three and a half years and has produced 90m KWh for the national grid. The farm, inaugurated by Desalegn on Saturday, was supervised by German company Lahmeyer International and implemented by France's Vergnet with French funding. But the Ethiopian government insisted there were also local spin-offs. "The project has provided very important experience-sharing for Ethiopia's national companies, who have been involved in the construction of civil works such as geotechnical investigations, roads, turbine foundations, sub-station erection and electro-mechanical erection works," it said. Media reports in 2011, however, noted that about 700 farmers had lost some or all their land to make way for the turbines. They were given financial compensation but some complained the money was too little. Ethiopia aims to become the region's leading producer of renewable energy. In the past two years it has built two smaller wind farms near Adama, south-east of Addis Ababa, with a capacity of 51MW each. It urgently needs new energy to feed economic growth that has averaged more than 10% over the past decade. Power cuts are still a regular occurrence in major cities and about half the country still has no access to mains electricity. The government plans to build a "climate resilient" economy by 2025 (pdf), with adequate energy even if hydro power runs short because of reduced rainfall. A study by Chinese firm Hydrochina confirmed the high potential for wind power in the northern and southern parts of Ethiopia, particularly in the Somali region, with a huge estimated wind energy potential of 1.3m MW, according to Reuters. Ruth Mhlanga, a climate and energy campaigner for Greenpeace Africa, welcomed the Ashegoda windfarm development. "We need an increase in renewable energy access on the continent, so the fact Ethiopia is investing is really good," she said, adding a cautionary note that measures are needed to ensure the use of more local manufacturing and expertise. More than two-thirds of the population of sub-Saharan Africa is without electricity, and more than 85% of those living in rural areas lack access. In June, Barack Obama announced a $7bn (£4.33bn) initiative to double access, citing the potential to develop clean geothermal, hydro, wind and solar energy. | ['global-development/natural-resources-and-development', 'global-development/global-development', 'environment/windpower', 'environment/energy', 'environment/renewableenergy', 'environment/environment', 'world/ethiopia', 'world/africa', 'world/world', 'tone/news', 'type/article', 'profile/davidsmith'] | environment/windpower | ENERGY | 2013-10-28T13:07:56Z | true | ENERGY |
business/2008/may/16/barrattdevelopmentsbusiness.housingmarket | Barratt reveals the house that doesn't cost the earth | Barratt Developments has unveiled what it calls the first zero-carbon house developed by a volume housebuilder. Barratt's Green House, which has been built at the Buildings Research Establishment in Watford, is packed with the latest technology, including solar panels, rainwater harvesting and an air source heat pump. Its new kind of concrete walls and floors, combined with super insulation and triple-glazed windows, means its heat requirement will be minimal as it is airtight. Fresh air is brought into the building through a heat exchanger, which extracts the heat from outgoing stale air and puts it back into the house. Housebuilders will be forced by government legislation to build only zero-carbon houses from 2016 onwards but, given the long lead times in the industry, they are already trying to meet that target. Mark Clare, chief executive of Barratt, said it would not be easy to reduce the cost of the prototype to commercial levels but he was confident it could be done. The important thing, he added, was to build houses that people would buy. "We cannot and will not build houses that do not appeal to consumers. But they must also be affordable," he said, adding that he was confident the new house would be accepted by buyers after winning 22,000 votes from the public in a competition last year. Caroline Flint, the housing minister, said: "Our goal is to build not just more homes but better homes. That's why all new homes must be zero carbon from 2016, with progressively tough standards being introduced over the coming years. "This is the most ambitious programme anywhere in the world. And the UK housebuilding industry is at the forefront - not only signing up to the target but coming up with the innovation that will make this happen." The government's code for sustainable homes is being tightened in the run-up to 2016. Code level six is the top grade awarded to a completely zero-carbon home. Barratt is already there. The UK Green Building Council released a report this week defining what a zero-carbon house should be in practice. This is likely to form the basis of the legislation that the government is soon going to work on. Housebuilders had been unhappy at the costs of going zero carbon and had wanted to be able to invest in off-site renewable energy such as wind turbines that would be cheaper for them. But the government is likely to endorse the GBC proposals that a zero-carbon house should produce almost all its energy on site or very near by in, say, a communal heat and power system. Barratt plans rolling out its zero-carbon homes on the site of Hanham Hall hospital near Bristol. It will build 200 of them, a third of which will be affordable to lower-income buyers. All will be code level six and will completed in 2011, five years ahead of the deadline. The Barratt house does not use gas. The air source heat pump is powered by electricity produced by the solar photovoltaic cells on the roof. Hot water comes mainly from a solar thermal panel on the roof, backed up in winter by the heat pump. Automatic shutters slide across the windows to prevent the house getting too hot in the summer, although they can be overridden manually. Andrew Sutton, from the architects Gaunt Francis, who designed the house, acknowledged that the heavy use of concrete in the house released some carbon in its manufacture but he said it gave the houses excellent "thermal mass" and would last well over 100 years, meaning that the building's lifetime carbon footprint would be extremely low. To encourage take-up, zero-carbon homes costing up to £500,000 will be free of stamp duty until 2012. Those costing more than £500,000 will receive a stamp duty discount of £15,000. | ['business/barrattdevelopments', 'business/housingmarket', 'business/ethicalbusiness', 'environment/greenbuilding', 'money/property', 'business/business', 'environment/environment', 'money/money', 'uk/uk', 'environment/solarpower', 'type/article', 'profile/ashleyseager', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/financial3'] | environment/solarpower | ENERGY | 2008-05-15T23:26:37Z | true | ENERGY |
world/2018/sep/18/hurricane-florence-north-carolina-recovery | Wilmington: power outages and rising temperatures strain slow recovery | Two people, after waiting more than three hours in 90-degree weather for freshly made ice, had just fainted, a group of people said, pointing to an ambulance pulled up by the side of the gas station. More than a hundred onlookers standing next to coolers in shorts and flip-flops watched the first responders help a woman sit down. Police sirens screeched incessantly in the background, off to another location. For the first time in a week since before Hurricane Florence took the town apart, the sun came out in Wilmington and brought a new set of problems. It’s now boiling hot and many people here in this stricken North Carolina city don’t have air conditioning or enough gas for the generators to turn on fans. Hurricane Florence has consumed the town physically and exhausted its residents and responders emotionally. Every conversation is one of survival, how families are faring and how they will cope in the weeks and months ahead. Downed power lines were tangled in tree limbs. Pool-sized bodies of water created by Florence cut off entire streets, and sometimes, neighborhoods from the rest of Wilmington. And now the town – which was cut off from the rest of the state over the weekend – is in survival mode, even if a roadway in has been opened by emergency workers. Next to a 200-car line for gas, Michael Horner sat helplessly at a closed gas station. He can’t idle or start and stop his car for four hours because his tank is on empty. “I’m hoping a tanker truck [with gas] will show up,” the 60-year-old said. He didn’t know if one would. “Just hopin’,” he added staring at the gas station next door. It could be days, possibly longer. “I’m here until I get gas.” On top of being stranded in his car, Horner had no power at home and three windows were knocked down, letting in a torrent of rain over three days. “I am trapped, I’m stuck here,” he said resignedly. A few feet away, at a functioning gas station, Jerry Murrell sat patiently in his white pickup truck. He was next in line to refill and it had taken four hours. “I’m an original, been here since ’49 and this one right here is gonna rank right up there with Bertha because then, it took a week to get power. This time, it’s going to be a while.” He didn’t want to wait for gas, but his house was damp, without air and he had no choice but to air it out. “I had to turn the air conditioning on to keep the moisture out of the house.” Murrell is one of the lucky ones. Down the road at a Harris Teeter grocery store, a man sleeping in the Hoggard high school shelter picked up bananas and sat at the tables by Starbucks. He had nowhere else to go and it was one of the few places with air conditioning as temperatures rose. As the water slowly recedes under the glaring blaze of sweltering sunlight, survival in Wilmington is most crucial as getting food and clean water become paramount. In front of National Food market, Jesseca Toamani carried her five-week-old son, Harris, back into the pickup truck while her husband bought snacks at the convenience store. The bees had come out after the rain and Harris needed some protection. “I couldn’t wait in line at the Harris Teeter, it was too long,” she said, putting the pacifier in the baby’s mouth as he wailed. His light blue onesie looked too warm in the sweltering heat. She fanned Harris as his cheeks turned red. Residents weren’t the only ones frustrated with the recovery process. A group of men, coming in from other parts of North Carolina, have descended on Wilmington. Parked in the road, next to two piles of 50ft trees cut into 2ft chunks, they ask drivers in passing cars if they need help, clearing roads and yards. “Fema called us but we didn’t want to come with them,” Al Lewis said, leaning against the truck. The dozen men with him, clad in overalls and baseball caps, bobbed their heads up and down in agreement. Though they have worked straight through the night, that’s not the part that bothered them about the backbreaking work of helping those trapped by trees and power lines. They say most residents of the town are starting the recovery by themselves as the official response is still lagging. “I’ve been to every hurricane there is. They had food on every corner; they had stuff. They come together down in Texas. They come together good. Out here, they ain’t together. They ain’t got food, they ain’t got water, they got nothing,” he said. He and his crew haven’t been able to find gas in four days, just like most people in Wilmington. “We’re out here roughing it,” Lewis said. Five streets over, a man jumped out of a City of Wilmington truck. He picked up a fallen street sign and banged it back into the ground, looking satisfied with his handiwork. But for many of those stuck in Wilmington, in the stifling heat, such acts are barely the beginning of the recovery. | ['world/hurricane-florence', 'world/natural-disasters', 'us-news/northcarolina', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/khushbu-shah', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-news'] | world/hurricane-florence | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2018-09-18T10:00:23Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
world/2000/aug/28/3 | From Greece to Corsica, wildfires take hold | A state of emergency has been declared on the Greek island of Corfu as wildfires continue to burn throughout the Balkans and many Mediterranean regions. Blazes in the island's central mountainous region follow major outbreaks on mainland Greece. However, a Foreign Office spokesman says the holiday island is safe for British tourists. Firefighters on the mainland are facing an uphill battle against a new fire along the border with Macedonia which threatens to spread into Greece, which has had its worst fire season in decades. Areas near the Albanian border and in the southern Arcadia region remain in a state of emergency. Croatia has closed sections of the Adriatic coastal road near Dubrovnik as firefighters struggle to contain blazes that have consumed hundreds of hectares of forest and brush, threatening coastal villages and resorts. One volunteer firefighter has died and several have been injured in recent days. Fire has engulfed several hundred hectares of pine forest and scrub in the hills 25 miles south-east of Podgorica, the capital of Yugoslavia's smaller republic, Montenegro. The authorities on Corsica evacuated 30 people during the night from the village of Vivario when fires began to threaten homes. At least 10 fires were burning yesterday and more looked set to break out in strengthening winds. | ['world/world', 'world/wildfires', 'type/article'] | world/wildfires | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2000-08-27T23:49:28Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
world/2018/jun/06/world-weatherwatch-us-tornado-season-and-indian-monsoon-begin | World weatherwatch: US tornado season and Indian monsoon begin | The 2018 tornado season across the Great Plains of the US started on a record-breaking quiet note, with very few tornadoes recorded in April. However, through May, the season kicked into life and, over the past week, further tornadic thunderstorms have produced severe weather. One tornado damaged several homes in Gillette, Wyoming, last Friday as well as injuring a number of people. Meanwhile, in Maryland in the eastern US, 20cm (8in) of rain fell in just one day in the historic Ellicott City, resulting in flooding that devastated the centre of the city and claimed the life of one citizen. The torrential rain and flash flooding came just two years after a similar flood tore through the city. Following extreme heat recently across parts of India and Pakistan, the monsoon season has begun over the past 10 days in south-western India, creating new rainfall records. In Mangaluru, 334mm (13in) of rain fell in just in 24 hours during Tuesday of last week. Put into perspective, this is more than half of the rainfall that London would expect to see during a whole year. | ['world/tornadoes', 'environment/flooding', 'weather/usa', 'weather/index/asia', 'environment/environment', 'weather/index/northandcentralamerica', 'news/series/weatherwatch', 'news/series/world-weatherwatch', 'world/world', 'science/meteorology', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/brendan-jones', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-weather'] | environment/flooding | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2018-06-06T20:30:23Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
commentisfree/2011/jan/25/undercover-sex-police-climate-activists | The price of undercover sex in the police | Tamsin Allen | Since police infiltration of the climate change movement was first revealed, a number of female activists have disclosed that they slept, and formed loving relationships, with men they subsequently discovered to be undercover officers. In an interview in the Guardian last week, a woman described the devastating effects of learning that a man she had two children with was the police officer Jim Boyling; she concluded that this sort of covert operation "wrecks lives". There is talk of many more men and women in the same position. Their fury and betrayal is easy to understand. It must be a horrifying experience to discover that your partner is not the person they say they are; that they may have been relaying information provided in confidence "on the pillow", to the state; and that the fundamentals of the relationship were lies. Many have described the sense of violation they feel. Yesterday activists blockaded the main entrance of Scotland Yard in a demonstration against undercover officers having sexual relations with members of groups they infiltrate, following claims that a tactic of "promiscuity" was routinely adopted, with the blessing of senior commanders. In such circumstances, activists may well have strong legal remedies against the police. The common law right to privacy will protect them from any misuse of their personal information except where there is a clear public interest. Then there is the linked right to respect for private and family life guaranteed under Article 8 of the European convention on human rights. That includes a right to form relationships without unjustified interference by the state. To be justified, interference must be authorised by law, pursue a legitimate aim (such as the prevention of crime or disorder) and be proportionate to that aim. It is difficult to see how forming a deceitful sexual relationship with an activist is proportionate to any legitimate aim. And the deceit itself may be actionable. The police officers concerned entered into relationships on the basis of false representations about themselves. The shock and distress caused when the officer's identity is exposed may form an additional basis for an award of damages. There could also be claims for misfeasance in public office. While the police may claim that they did have stringent policies and that a couple of rogue officers fell in love while on the job, the sheer number of sexual relationships between activists and undercover officers looks like something more than a coincidence. It is surely inconceivable that the authorities didn't know, or that they didn't at least tacitly approve of, sexual relationships as part of the methodology of police spying. Mixed messages are already appearing. The Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) says that relationships with the targets of undercover activities were strictly forbidden. But a former undercover officer has contradicted the official line, claiming that officers were encouraged to sleep with activists. However, whether officers were abusing their position because they felt like it or because they were encouraged to do so to obtain intelligence, this does indeed look like the clearest abuse of power – or "state-endorsed sexual manipulation" as one activist has described it. Despite the stress of litigating in the matter of private and sensitive issues, many will be willing to bring claims, not only for the financial remedies, but also to highlight what appears to be widespread and serious wrongdoing. It seems probable that the police will face at the very least a number of claims from victims bringing civil claims for damages. If the police are suggesting that the relationships were not sanctioned – despite growing evidence to the contrary – then they should immediately identify any more undercover officers who have been involved in relationships with activists so that the victims have an opportunity to bring claims for damages. But given the shock and concern about what looks like a deliberate policing tactic, the victims and civil society as a whole deserve to know what really happened: how the police, charged with a duty to uphold the law, appear to have abused politically active citizens. We all need to be reassured that the police are under control when undercover; that those in charge are themselves properly regulated and overseen; and that lessons have been learned. That requires nothing less than a full independent public inquiry. | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'environment/environment', 'uk/mark-kennedy', 'world/surveillance', 'world/protest', 'environment/activism', 'uk/police', 'uk/uk', 'tone/comment', 'uk/undercover-police-and-policing', 'type/article', 'profile/tamsin-allen', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/commentanddebate'] | environment/activism | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM | 2011-01-25T08:30:01Z | true | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM |
environment/2022/jun/06/peter-dutton-says-hes-not-afraid-of-nuclear-debate-after-advocate-named-shadow-energy-minister | Peter Dutton says he’s ‘not afraid’ of nuclear debate after advocate named shadow energy minister | Peter Dutton has confirmed that his frontbench pick for the opposition’s climate and energy portfolio signals he is up for a debate about nuclear power in Australia. In Sunday’s reshuffle the Liberal MP and nuclear power advocate Ted O’Brien was appointed to the shadow cabinet in the crucial portfolio. On Monday Dutton told ABC Radio National he was “not afraid to have a discussion on nuclear”, confirming he had considered O’Brien’s support for the form of power in deciding to take the fight to Labor on electricity prices and emissions reduction. In December 2019 O’Brien chaired a parliamentary committee that recommended the partial lifting of the moratorium on nuclear energy to allow for “new and emerging nuclear technologies”. The report won plaudits from some other Liberals in the party room and Nationals in the Senate, although O’Brien has reportedly said the ban should not be lifted without bipartisan support. Dutton said O’Brien was a “very considered person”, praising his work on the latest generation of nuclear power – “the small modular nuclear generation which can power up to 100,000 houses”. “If we want to have a legitimate emissions reduction, if we want to lower emissions reduction, that’s exactly the path President Macron has embarked on in France, it’s what prime minister Johnson is talking about in the United Kingdom,” he told Radio National. “I don’t think we should be afraid to talk about any technology that’s going to have the ability to reduce emissions and electricity prices. That’s something we can consider in time. I don’t think we should rule things out simply because it’s unfashionable to talk about them.” Labor has long called on the Coalition to rule out the “fantasy” of nuclear power, and threatened to campaign against it in communities where plants had been proposed, such as Townsville. A nuclear reactor is expected to take at least 15 years to build. Although small “modular” reactors show promise, the CSIRO science agency has suggested they won’t be affordable until 2050. The Australian Nuclear Association has said nuclear power would only be cost competitive with gas and coal generation if Australia adopted a price for carbon emissions, an anathema to the Coalition since its repeal of Labor’s interim carbon price. The conservative thinktank the Institute of Public Affairs released a poll, taken in April, finding that most Australians (53%) agreed with the proposition that “Australia should build nuclear power plants to supply electricity and reduce carbon emissions”. About a quarter (23%) disagreed, and 24% neither agreed nor disagreed. On Monday the Liberal senator Hollie Hughes, the shadow assistant minister for climate change and energy, said she was “not personally in favour” of extending carbon emission reduction targets. Hughes told ABC News Breakfast that Australia “could shut everything down tomorrow and all go live in trees” and the impact on total global emissions would be negligible. She suggested Australia should consider small modular nuclear energy. The Coalition reshuffle also saw Julian Leeser, an advocate of an Indigenous voice to parliament, appointed to the role of shadow attorney general and Indigenous affairs minister. Dutton said the Coalition was “very open to the discussion and what the government has to say” on the voice. “In principle, do we support anything that’s going to improve the situation of Indigenous Australians? Absolutely.” But he warned there “are things that can be done now in those communities that don’t need to wait for a referendum, and I would like to see those actions”. “Every government that I’ve been in, that I’ve witnessed … Liberal or Labor, has had good intention … of closing the gap. “There have been some successes and we should celebrate those successes, but that we’re still talking about sexual assault of women and children, now, and the domestic violence incidences at a record rate is completely and utterly deplorable.” Dutton also signalled greater efforts to recruit women to the Liberal party but ruled out the use of quotas. The shadow cabinet now contains 10 women, three in the Nationals and seven in the Liberals, with Sarah Henderson joining as shadow communications minister but Marise Payne stepping back into the cabinet secretary role. Dutton said the Liberals were “at a disadvantage” because women in the labour movement could run for office, then work for unions or industry super funds if they lost. “Business won’t do that for the Liberal party. A small businesswoman who is juggling an overdraft and trying to get her business up and running can’t afford to take six weeks off for a campaign, because her business goes broke. “So we need to come up with a different model, and that in my mind is the biggest inhibitor.” | ['environment/energy', 'australia-news/peter-dutton', 'environment/nuclearpower', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'australia-news/liberal-party', 'australia-news/australian-politics', 'australia-news/energy-australia', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/paul-karp', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/nuclearpower | ENERGY | 2022-06-06T00:29:37Z | true | ENERGY |
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/pollution | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2020-05-29T16:42:00Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
science/political-science/2013/jul/31/climate-scientists-policies | Climate scientists must not advocate particular policies | Tamsin Edwards | As a climate scientist, I'm under pressure to be a political advocate. This comes mainly from environmentalists. Dan Cass, wind-farm director and solar advocate, preferred me not to waste my time debating "denialist morons" but to use political advocacy to "prevent climate catastrophe". Jeremy Grantham, environmental philanthropist, urged climate scientists to sound a "more desperate note … Be arrested if necessary." A concerned member of the public judged my efforts at public engagement successful only if they showed "evidence of persuasion". Others ask "what should we do?" At my Cheltenham Science Festival event Can we trust climate models? one of the audience asked what we thought of carbon taxes. I refused to answer, despite the chair's repeated requests and joke (patronisingly; his aim was to entertain) that I "shouldn't be embarrassed at my lack of knowledge". Even some of my colleagues think I should be clearer about my political beliefs. In a Twitter debate last month Gavin Schmidt, climate scientist and blogger, argued we should state our preferences to avoid accusations of having a hidden agenda. I believe advocacy by climate scientists has damaged trust in the science. We risk our credibility, our reputation for objectivity, if we are not absolutely neutral. At the very least, it leaves us open to criticism. I find much climate scepticism is driven by a belief that environmental activism has influenced how scientists gather and interpret evidence. So I've found my hardline approach successful in taking the politics and therefore – pun intended – the heat out of climate science discussions. They call me an "honest broker", asking for "more Dr Edwards and fewer zealous advocates". Crucially, they say this even though my scientific views are absolutely mainstream. But it's not just about improving trust. In this highly politicised arena, climate scientists have a moral obligation to strive for impartiality. We have a platform we must not abuse. For a start, we rarely have the necessary expertise. I absolutely disagree with Gavin that we likely know far more about the issues involved in making policy choices than [our] audience. Even scientists who are experts – such as those studying the interactions between climate, economy and politics, with "integrated assessment models" – cannot speak for us because political decisions necessarily depend on values. There are many ways to try to minimise climate change (with mitigation or geoengineering) or its impacts (adaptation) and, given a pot of money, we must decide what we most want to protect. How do we weigh up economic growth against ecosystem change? Should we prioritise the lives and lifestyles of people today or in the future? Try to limit changes in temperature or rainfall? These questions cannot be answered with scientific evidence alone. To me, then, it is simple: scientists misuse their authority if they publicise their preferred policy options. Some say it is safe to express our views with sufficient context: "this is just my personal opinion, but … " In my experience such caveats are ignored. Why else would we be asked "what should we do?" by the public or media, if not with an expectation of expertise, or the desire for data to replace a difficult decision? Rather than being incoherent – "I don't know much about policy, but I know what I like" – or dictatorial – "If I were to rule the world, I would do this" – we should have the courage and humility not to answer. Others say it is simplistic and impossible to separate science from policy, or that all individuals are advocates. But there is a difference between giving an estimate of the consequences of a particular action and giving an opinion on how or whether to take that action; between risk assessment, estimating the probability of change and its effect on things we care about, and risk management, deciding how to reduce or live with that risk. A flood forecaster provides a map of the probability of flooding, but she does not decide what is an unacceptable level of risk, or how to spend the budget to reduce the risk (sea defences; regulation of building and insurance). We must be vigilant against what Roger Pielke Jr in The Honest Broker calls "stealth issue advocacy": claiming we are talking about science when really we are advocating policy. This is clearly expressed by Robert T Lackey: "Often I hear or read in scientific discourse words such as degradation, improvement, good, and poor. Such value-laden words should not be used to convey scientific information because they imply a preferred … state [or] class of policy options ... The appropriate science words are, for example, change, increase, or decrease." (Science, Scientists and Policy Advocacy) I became a climate scientist because I've always cared about the environment, since a vivid school talk about the ozone layer (here, page 4) and the influence of my brother, who was green long before it was cool. But I care more about restoring trust in science than about calling people to action; more about improving public understanding of science so society can make better-informed decisions, than about making people's decisions for them. Science doesn't tell us the answer to our problems. Neither should scientists. This post is part of a series on science and the green movement. Tamsin Edwards is a climate scientist at the University of Bristol using computer models to study climate change and sea level. She blogs at All Models Are Wrong and on Twitter she is @flimsin | ['science/scienceofclimatechange', 'science/political-science', 'science/science-policy', 'science/science', 'tone/blog', 'environment/carbon-tax', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/environment', 'politics/politics', 'science/series/science-blog-network', 'type/article', 'profile/tamsin-edwards'] | environment/carbon-tax | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2013-07-31T11:06:39Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
world/2023/sep/18/libya-floods-calls-for-aid-grow-louder-as-hopes-of-finding-survivors-fade | ‘I never thought we would survive’: Derna after the deluge | Eight days after a 10-metre wall of water transformed a city of 100,000 people into a wasteland some people are still wearing the pyjamas they woke up in that terrible night. With loved ones lost, finding new clothes, washing, sleeping and eating are not priorities for the survivors of Derna. Libyans from all over the country have rushed to help, and among them are rescue teams from the Libyan Red Crescent, some in crimson jackets, others in white hazmat suits, gloves and masks. Roads into Derna are filled with ambulances and trucks carrying food and water. More than a week after the catastrophe they are still finding people alive, although the dead fill the mud-washed city of ruined buildings. One team reported on Sunday that they had rescued a family of five from a valley near the city. Ibrahim Abdulsamia, 36, and his wife somehow managed to survive despite their five-storey building being uprooted and carried away. “I never imagined we would survive, my wife and I, but it was by the grace of God that we were given a new lease on life,” he said. His wife, Fatima al-Hadi, 28, clung to their young daughter when the dam burst, but the power of the water and the rubble it carried meant she was later lost. Abdulsamia spoke with anguish, tears in his eyes, as he recounted their search for their daughter beneath the rubble. After four days trapped under debris, the couple was found alive, thanks to Maltese rescue teams who managed to locate and extract them to safety. What they could not have imagined was that another rescue team would also find his 12-year-old daughter on the third storey, which had been carried elsewhere. She was handed over to the Red Crescent after four days without food or water. He now feels overwhelming gratitude for being alive with his small family, seeing it as a chance for a new life despite losing so much to the floods. Others had no chance. At least 11,300 people have died in Derna and more than 10,000 are missing, according to the Libyan Red Crescent. More than 30,000 people from Derna are now homeless, UN agencies warn. Residents say the threat to the city from the crumbling dams above it had been widely known. They also blame authorities for failing to evacuate people in time. The extensive destruction of the city highlights the fragility of Libya’s situation, a country rich in oil but divided between two competing administrations, each backed by armed militias for nearly a decade. The conflicts have persisted since the 2011 Nato-backed Arab spring uprising that toppled the late leader Muammar Gaddafi. Derna is in the east, and until 2019 was held by a succession of Islamist militant groups including branches of al-Qaida and Islamic State. Both Libyan governments and foreign nations have collaborated to aid the affected but progress has been painfully slow. Bridges, roads and other infrastructure have been severely damaged, isolating the city. Electricity has been cut off, and the first relief convoys only reached the area late on Tuesday. “After the tragic events witnessed in the Derna disaster, we must now seriously address the issue of other dams in Libya to prevent consequences we cannot bear,” said Ali Abu Zeid, a local political analyst. Among these is the Al-Khums valley dam, which he said posed a real threat to the city of Al-Khums, and the Madjannin valley dam, which threatens large population centres in southern Tripoli. It is crucial now to open a discussion about all the dams in Libya and take the necessary precautions, said Abu Zeid. Hopes of finding survivors in Derna diminish every day. Specialised teams are working tirelessly, and local officials have warned of the potential need to evacuate the city entirely or partially to prevent the spread of diseases. The sea continues to wash up more bodies every day. As the death toll and the number of missing persons rise, calls from within Derna and other areas for more vehicles, equipment, rescue teams, and services to aid in the search for the missing are growing louder. Meanwhile, people wait anxiously in the rubble-filled streets for any good news they can cling to, hoping Derna may one day return to what it once was. Reuters contributed to this report | ['world/libya-flood-2023', 'world/libya', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'tone/features', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/international', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-foreign'] | world/libya-flood-2023 | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2023-09-18T14:33:17Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/article/2024/jul/19/climate-protesters-jailed-today-whos-next | Climate protesters jailed today. Who’s next? | Brief letters | On the day that the first Covid inquiry report excoriates the UK’s failure to save lives during the pandemic, protesters who, at worst, added negligible delays to the hell that is the M25 commute, receive hugely disproportionate custodial sentences (Five Just Stop Oil activists receive record sentences for planning to block M25, 18 July). Who else is going to prison? John Kelly Little Raveley, Huntingdon • By saying “I’m a never Trump guy. I never liked him” (From anti-Trump to vice-president nominee: JD Vance in his own words, 16 July), JD Vance is clearly showing himself to be a man of principle – in the style of Groucho Marx: “Those are my principles, and if you don’t like them … well, I have others.” Chris Ainsworth Rawtenstall, Lancashire • Alas, our posties no longer drop elastic bands in our area (Letters, 18 July). We relied on them to top up our household stock. Now we source ours during the asparagus season because the stems are usefully tied together with them. Ann Smith Churchdown, Gloucester • Elastic band recyclers will find that they are conveniently stored in a 35mm film canister. Chris Osborne West Bridgford, Nottingham • Thank you for Ella Baron’s wonderful depiction of the appalling divide between rich and poor that our democracy allows (17 July). If only Charles had ordered a taxi and asked people to wear their own clothes. Philip and Enid Lodge Liverpool • Have an opinion on anything you’ve read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section. | ['environment/activism', 'type/article', 'tone/letters', 'commentisfree/series/brief-letters', 'environment/just-stop-oil', 'world/protest', 'uk-news/covid-inquiry', 'us-news/jd-vance', 'us-news/donaldtrump', 'business/royal-mail', 'uk/monarchy', 'uk/uk', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/journal', 'theguardian/journal/letters', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-letters-and-leader-writers'] | environment/just-stop-oil | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM | 2024-07-19T16:09:47Z | true | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM |
commentisfree/2019/oct/12/used-to-stockpile-for-apocalypse-where-did-youthful-terror-go-grace-dent | I used to stockpile for the nuclear apocalypse. Where did my youthful terror go? | Grace Dent | As Extinction Rebellion flooded Whitehall with rivers of fake blood this month, and its youthful members conspired to gridlock nationwide traffic, I was reminded again of a half-term holiday in Cumbria in 1984 when I made and consumed a lot of packet soup. It was the powdered variety of Knorr’s Farmhouse Vegetable, which looked like wallpaper paste with carrot flecks and bullets of salty starch laughably called “croutons”. Yet the preparing of this soup, the stirring, the simmering and the drinking, gave me a small, temporary sense of comfort because, aged 11, all day and all night, I worried about nuclear bombs. Or not so much the bombs themselves, but the terrifying end-of-days carnage that would follow, that I’d heard talk of on Panorama or via CND leaflets. I fixated on the matter of saving my cats, Soot and Fred, while the Dents crouched under the kitchen table. Should I put the cats in a cardboard box? What if the bomb scared them away? Would it be safe to go out and look? I cried alone at night, worrying how I could possibly be strong enough to dig a hole to bury my mother when she inevitably died, gasping, of radiation sickness. I fretted especially about what I would eat once the shops had been looted, the factories and fields decimated, leaving me the sole survivor, tasked with saving the universe. This was why I was secretly stockpiling packets of Knorr soup in a shoebox under my bed, rebelling against my own extinction. And although, 34 years later, I am still very much here, for this reason I find it hard to be vexed by the scared young people blocking bridges and lying prostrate on motorways. At a TV studio recently, one starry type, who I will leave anonymous, huffed into makeup demanding I vacate my interview slot so that she could go first, as it had taken her three hours to cross London. “It’s taken us all three hours, babes. No one is personally targeting you. Buy some trainers and walk if the road is blocked,” I snapped, as the runner attempted to do the green room equivalent of putting a tea towel over my parrot cage to quieten me. Extinction Rebellion may be, to some of us, annoying little shits, but they do it on our behalf – and this problem is real. I find Greta Thunberg’s stiff, hollow-eyed and terrified expression painful, as it is borne of a lot of lost sleep. It is the exact same expression I wore as I stirred that soup, full of visions of the end of the world. Each youthful sort seriously ballsing up your mini-break has their own Room 101 of nightmares; of drowning parents, of water-bloated corpses, of airborne viruses, and how they’ll keep their own cats dry when a large downpour finally washes away Cornwall. Importantly, only youthful types feel so passionately that all of these things go against what is right. My personal terror over nuclear war dissipated as I grew older and more accustomed to the wider truth: that existential dread comes in many, many flavours, and the pure fact is that every one of us will die of something crap eventually – so hey, better just make the best of things, eh? Perhaps you feel like me – as you push plastic cartons into the recycling, knowing they cannot be recycled – and still hope for the best. You know the planet is getting hotter, but on the upside Margate was lovely in late September. So I thank the youth for their passion, their fury, because my genre of middle-aged gloomy stoicism is no use at all when it comes to any sort of world-saving venture. No one needs me on an Extinction Rebellion march platform saying things like: “Well, sure, global heating is bad, I’m with you on that, but to be quite honest I’ve seen what dying slowly of Alzheimer’s or cancer is like, and one big flood out of nowhere seems like a good deal to me.” Or, “Look, I used to worry about nuclear war, but that sort of went out of fashion. Just like horror about the environment might, too, because there is usually a diverting new terror just around the corner.” I no longer worry much about the end of the world; instead, I live every day for the tiny moments of joy that buffer the inevitable. We are all dying – could be next week, could be in 20 years, could be later. It struck me recently, after a decade of caring for my parents, that I am most likely to die aged 85+, plodding endlessly between a dozen contradictory doctor’s appointments, or waiting for a letter for a test; not in a bang or a flash, but waiting to have blood taken, reading an old copy of Closer. This week, I lived for the small joys of meeting a nice waggy dog in a pub, which fell into my arms pathetically; a slow-cooker pasta puttanesca sauce; laughing with my brother on WhatsApp about old rave tunes; and booking a ticket to see Judy with Renée Zellweger. I did not eat any packet soup or worry overly about the environment. It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine. | ['commentisfree/grace-dents-weekend-column', 'tone/comment', 'lifeandstyle/lifeandstyle', 'tone/features', 'environment/extinction-rebellion', 'environment/environment', 'commentisfree/commentisfree', 'type/article', 'profile/gracedent', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/weekend', 'theguardian/weekend/starters', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/weekend'] | environment/extinction-rebellion | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM | 2019-10-12T08:00:23Z | true | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM |
environment/2024/dec/13/miliband-pledges-no-blackouts-under-labours-unstoppable-renewable-energy-shake-up | Miliband pledges no blackouts under Labour’s ‘unstoppable’ renewable energy shake-up | The UK will not face blackouts under Labour’s proposed shake-up of energy supply, Ed Miliband has said, as he unveiled plans to boost clean power by the end of the decade. The energy secretary insisted the transition away from fossil fuels was “unstoppable.” Miliband has beensetting out the government’s “clean power 2030” plan , including measures to boost the UK’s renewable energy supply such as building canopies of solar panels on outdoor car parks. The blueprint includes wide-ranging measures to speed up planning decisions on clean energy projects, unblock the queue of projects waiting to connect to the grid and empowering the energy secretary to have the final say on major infrastructure such as giant onshore wind farms. Speaking on Friday, Miliband denied there was a risk of blackouts in a clean power system if the wind does not blow and the sun does not shine. “That’s why you have a strategic reserve of gas-fired power stations, why you have, for example, long-duration energy storage, why you have batteries, why you have nuclear,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “You have a range of things on the system to absolutely ensure security of supply. And it’s a largely renewables-based system, but it’s not an only renewables-based system.” The government wants to wean the country off its dependence on fossil fuels, which was laid bare when Russia’s invasion of Ukraine caused British energy bills to soar to record highs. Energy industry and environmental groups broadly welcomed the plan, with the latter urging the government against investing in carbon capture projects at the expense of supporting renewable energy development. The plans come as low wind and solar power generation forced Britain to rely heavily on burning gas and wood pellets. As of Thursday, about 65% of Britain’s electricity was being generated from gas and biomass, with only 5.3% coming from wind. Miliband told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme the transition to clean energy was “unstoppable” even in the face of the US turning back towards fossil fuels under Donald Trump. He was asked what was the point of Labour’s plans when it was estimated that the US would wipe out emissions reduction efforts by other countries. “The point of this is that we’re doing the right thing, not just for climate reasons.” It is also about energy security, he said. “This is about what the country’s gone through, is going through from the cost-of-living crisis that was caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “This is about giving us energy security. And by the way, on climate this transition is unstoppable. Whatever one government or one country or even one president does, this is an unstoppable transition.” Among the measures covered by the plan was confirmation that onshore windfarms will be brought back into the Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project regime in England, which streamlines planning processes for important and large-scale projects. This would make it easier to progress onshore farms larger than 100MW, which in some cases require hundreds of acres of land. Miliband told BBC Breakfast he could bypass local opposition to wind turbines as energy secretary as the government seeks to decarbonise the grid. Asked if he would have the ultimate say as energy Secretary if there was a big pushback from locals for wind turbines, he said: “Yes, that’s correct.” “My message to local people is, people should have a say.” | ['environment/energy', 'politics/edmiliband', 'environment/environment', 'politics/politics', 'uk/uk', 'environment/windpower', 'environment/solarpower', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/topstories', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-home-news', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/energy | ENERGY | 2024-12-13T10:48:37Z | true | ENERGY |
theguardian/2011/mar/14/europe-japan-and-energy-options | Letters: Europe, Japan and energy options | The EU commission's 2050 low-carbon road map released last week needs to raise Europe's sights beyond its current 2020 emission reduction targets (Report, 7 March). While the EU has agreed that emissions must be reduced by at least 80% by the middle of the century, it has not so far set out how to do it. We believe it's vital such a plan starts now rather than in forty40 years' time, and is a plan that can stimulate the right investment in low-carbon infrastructure and technology, putting Europe on track for a low-carbon future. Now is the right time to discuss the most cost-effective route to achieving our 2050 goals, maximising growth, jobs and prosperity throughout Europe. We are not starting from scratch; the EU has already cut emissions by 17% from 1990 levels by 2009. The commission's road map demonstrates both that the current 20% target is not a cost-effective route to the 2050 goal, and that we already have the tools and policies to cut emissions by 25% domestically. The European Energy Efficiency Plan is welcome and shows the big impact reducing energy consumption can have. The case to move to a 30% target by 2020 is now stronger as a result. At a time when the price of oil is soaring, putting in place an ambitious plan for Europe's low-carbon future has wider benefits than tackling climate change. It will increase the continent's resilience against oil price spikes and reduce its dependence on imported energy. And it will help Europe compete with emerging economies in the fast-growing markets for green goods and services. We know that some industries are worried about how they will adapt, but solutions are available. In the best traditions of European co-operation, we can work together to overcome these challenges. We call on all member states to enter into this urgent debate on Europe's future and agree how the road map is put into action– ensuring that Europe gets to the front of this low-carbon race, rather than falling behind. Chris Huhne secretary of state for energy and climate change, UK, Tina Birbili Minister of environment, energy and climate change, Greece, Andreas Carlgren Minister for the environment, Sweden. Lykke Friis Minister of climate and energy, Denmark, Rosa Aguilar Rivero Minister for Environment, Rural and Marine Affairs, Spain, Humberto D Rosa Secretary of state for environment, Portugal, Dr Norbert Röttgen Federal minister for the environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, Germany • For the last 35 years I have devoted much of my time to opposing nuclear power. There are many reasons. But they all boil down to this: however good the engineers, the systems, the maintenance, there is one generic flaw that can never be remedied – catastrophic failure means a catastrophic outcome, in a way in which other electricity-generating systems cannot compete. So, with the news that there has just been an explosion at Fukushima nuclear plant after the earthquake (Report, 12 March), I am insulted to learn that Sue Ions, fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, heavily involved in nuclear decommissioning and a proponent of new nuclear build, believes that "rather than undermining public faith in nuclear energy, this incident would highlight its safety … People should gain confidence that these plants have shut down as they should be." This country is on the brink of a mad escapade that will do little to solve the energy crisis. I beg government to reconsider how useful the contribution of nuclear power to our energy mix really is. Val Mainwood Wivenhoe, Colchester • In February 2007, as shadow minister of the environment, Chris Huhne said: "The doubling of our electricity generation from wind in a little more than a year shows what renewables can do and gives the lie to the need for a new generation of nuclear power … On a windy island surrounded by waves and tides, we should never be short of environmentally friendly energy sources." By the autumn of 2010, however, he was telling the Lib Dems to back a new generation of nuclear power stations. Having seen the dangers to life and the environment that may be approaching from the damaged Fukushima nuclear plant, it is high time Huhne turned full circle and swung round to his earlier sane and rational position. Rae Street Littleborough, Lancashire • Perhaps you should draw your article to the attention of the transport minister, Philip Hammond (Cut your speed, cut your petrol bill, 12 March). He is pressing for an increase in the motorway speed limit at the same time as his colleagues in the Department of Energy and Climate Change are looking to reduce the country's oil consumption in the face of fluctuations in oil prices, in addition to climate change pressures. Martin Quick Stroud, Gloucestershire | ['environment/nuclearpower', 'world/japan', 'world/japan-earthquake-and-tsunami', 'environment/energy', 'environment/energyefficiency', 'world/europe-news', 'world/european-commission', 'tone/letters', 'uk/uk', 'world/asia-pacific', 'type/article', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/editorialsandreply'] | environment/nuclearpower | ENERGY | 2011-03-14T00:05:12Z | true | ENERGY |
environment/damian-carrington-blog/2011/nov/23/climate-change-scepticism-hacked-climate-science-emails | Failure to catch climate email hacker is the real scandal | Damian Carrington | There is a scandal behind the latest release of emails written by climate scientists but is not about climate science. The true scandal is how, two years on, no one still has a clue who obtained the emails and why they so carefully timed their release for just before the UN's annual climate change negotiations. It matters. Those negotations are central to the world's efforts to tackling global warming and while, even in Copenhagen in 2009, the emails were barely discussed by governments, they have diverted debate from the real issues and spread confusion. The police inquiry, led by Norfolk Constabulary, has spent nothing on the investigation since March this year, and only £6,000 in the six months before that, according to Freedom of Information responses. That is not good enough. Until we know the identity and motivation of those behind the release of the emails, they still present a danger. That is because, while the scientific case for urgent action to preserve the Earth's climate stability is being made, political will is weak. And if doubt is cast in the minds of voters, politicians do not feel the pressure to act. The release of the emails is a classic "merchants of doubt" tactic, stolen from the tobacco industry who realised that when the scientific case was unanswerable, casting uncertainty on it was a very effective way to block action. For the avoidance of doubt: the case for action on global warming is built on many different lines of evidence from the melting Arctic to sophisticated modelling of future climate. Even just considering the most recent evidence, the case is compelling. The study from the Berkeley, designed as a sceptical, independent look at temperature records, entirely replicated existing records. The International Energy Agency, a conservative body with a fossil fuel heritage, stated starkly in its recent report that we face locking in dangerous warming within a few years. And in Durban from Monday, the world's nations will join once again completely unanimous in their agreement that we are causing climate change and that we must act to stop it. Furthermore, remember that numerous independent inquiries in the UK and US into the first batch of climate emails found without reservation that the compelling conclusions of climate science stood unchanged. The Guardian also investigated those emails exhaustively and came to the same conclusions. Today, Phil Jones, the scientist at the centre of the email chains, said he would not be judged on not his emails but on his scientific papers. The nations of the world meeting at the UN are attempting to do just that: judge the action required on the ample evidence available. But until the merchants of doubt who seek to poison the debate are unmasked, that already Herculean task will be even harder. | ['environment/damian-carrington-blog', 'environment/climate-change-scepticism', 'environment/hacked-climate-science-emails', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/environment', 'science/scienceofclimatechange', 'environment/durban-climate-change-conference-2011', 'world/world', 'tone/blog', 'type/article', 'profile/damiancarrington'] | environment/climate-change-scepticism | CLIMATE_DENIAL | 2011-11-23T14:39:00Z | true | CLIMATE_DENIAL |
australia-news/2021/dec/01/australias-biggest-privately-funded-battery-under-construction-at-hazelwood-power-station-site | Australia’s biggest privately funded battery under construction at Hazelwood power station site | Australia’s biggest privately funded “big battery” is being built on the site of the former Hazelwood power station in Victoria’s Latrobe valley, Macquarie Group and Engie say. The 150MW battery will use existing infrastructure at the Hazelwood site to connect to the electricity grid, the companies said in a statement. Engie shut down Hazelwood, which was Australia’s dirtiest coal-fired power plant, in 2017 and demolished its chimneys using explosives last year. The battery, which is already under construction at an estimated cost of $150m, is due to be up and running by November 2022. It will be smaller than the 350MW battery planned for the nearby Yallourn coal-fired power station when it shuts down in mid-2028. Macquarie and Engie said that in addition to storing electricity during off-peak times and delivering it back into the grid when demand is highest, the battery will help stabilise supply by helping to control the frequency at which it is delivered – something that is expected to become increasingly important as the amount of renewable energy in the system increases. The battery will be built, operated and maintained by Fluence, a joint venture between German electronics group Siemens and American power generator AES, under a 20-year contract. It will support the transition to green energy and help “ensure that electricity networks are resilient, reliable and flexible”, Greg Callman, the global head of energy technology at Macquarie’s Green Investment Group, said. Sign up to receive an email with the top stories from Guardian Australia every morning Engie shuttered Hazelwood with just five months’ notice in 2017 – a scenario that the Victorian government has avoided with Yallourn by arranging with its owner to close the plant, which delivers about 20% of Victoria’s electricity, in 2028, four years earlier than planned. Before Engie closed it, Hazelwood produced about 25% of Victoria’s electricity and was responsible for about 14% of the state’s emissions. The nearby open-cut mine from which it sourced brown coal also burned out of control for 45 weeks in 2014 after a bushfire spread into it. Engie’s chief executive for Australia and New Zealand, Augustin Honorat, said the company had a “long-term commitment” to Hazelwood and the Latrobe valley that included remediating the site and acting as “the builder and owner of a new energy asset that helps with the decarbonisation of the energy system”. | ['australia-news/energy-australia', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'environment/energy', 'environment/environment', 'australia-news/business-australia', 'environment/coal', 'australia-news/victoria', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/ben-butler', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/energy | ENERGY | 2021-12-01T02:47:45Z | true | ENERGY |
world/2015/jun/25/new-zealand-greenpeace-protesters-scale-parliament-roof | New Zealand Greenpeace protesters scale parliament roof | Four environmental protesters have breached security at New Zealand’s parliament by scaling the roof and perching themselves on a ledge above the main entrance. The Greenpeace protesters on Thursday hauled up eight solar panels and unfurled a banner to protest what they say is the government’s lack of action in promoting renewal energy and dealing with climate change. The protest began at dawn and continued throughout the morning. Police issued the four with trespass notices, but authorities say they plan to allow the protesters to come down on their own. The breach will come as an embarrassment to the parliament’s security services. David Stevenson, the general manager of Parliamentary Service, said in a statement he had ordered a full review of security procedures as a result of the breach. “Trespassing in or on the buildings is totally inappropriate, regardless of the motivations of those involved,” he said. “We are therefore taking this incident very seriously and will be looking for any lessons we can draw from it.” The forecourt in front of the main entrance is frequently used for sanctioned protests. Speaking from a cellphone, protester Johno Smith told the Associated Press that the four were experienced climbers and that they planned to come down on Thursday afternoon “before it gets too cold.” He said he hoped the protest would inspire people to act. “We need to take clean-energy action,” he said. “Our society is based around fossil fuels.” About 77% of New Zealand’s electricity generation comes from renewable sources, including hydroelectric, geothermal and wind. The country’s vehicle fleet, on the other hand, primarily uses gasoline and diesel. Bunny McDiarmid, Greenpeace New Zealand’s executive director, tweeted: “Security breach at parliament security breach of the planet? You choose.” The climbers continued to publicise their protest from the roof, tweeting pictures of themselves and engaging in an “ask me anything” question-and-answer webchat on Reddit. One of the protesters, named only as Jeff, told Reddit users that police officers on the ground were a “friendly bunch”, adding: “No signs of them comin [sic] up which is good, much safer for us. Best if we come down ourselves.” | ['world/newzealand', 'world/asia-pacific', 'world/world', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/environment', 'environment/greenpeace', 'environment/activism', 'world/auckland', 'type/article'] | environment/activism | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM | 2015-06-25T00:56:48Z | true | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM |
environment/2023/jun/20/nature-at-risk-of-breakdown-if-cop15-pledges-not-met-world-leaders-warned | Nature at risk of breakdown if Cop15 pledges not met, world leaders warned | Humans are exploiting nature beyond its limits, the University of Cambridge economist Prof Sir Partha Dasgupta has warned, as the UN’s environment chief calls on governments to make good on a global deal for biodiversity, six months after it was agreed. Dasgupta, the author of a landmark review into the economic importance of nature commissioned by the UK Treasury in 2021, said it was a mistake to continue basing economic policies on the postwar boom that did not account for damage to the planet. Speaking to the Guardian six months after Cop15, where countries agreed this decade’s targets to protect nature, Dasgupta cautioned that a headline goal to protect 30% of land and sea should not lead to the destruction of the remaining 70%. He reiterated a recommendation from his 2021 report that companies must disclose the parts of their supply chain that rely on nature, so governments can take action on halting biodiversity loss. Since the Kunming-Montreal global biodiversity framework was agreed in December 2022, there has been a deal to protect the high seas and first steps towards a legally binding UN treaty to regulate plastic waste. The first few months of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s presidency in Brazil has seen reductions in deforestation in the Amazon, although nature has become a culture wars issue in the EU, with proposals on restoration and pesticide reduction facing fierce opposition. An informal update on progress towards reaching the 23 targets and four goals included in the Montreal agreement is expected to be made at Cop28 in Dubai amid continuing scientific warnings about the health of the planet. “It is a truism: if the demand for nature’s products and services continues to exceed its ability to supply, then there is going to be a breakdown,” said Dasgupta. “It is a finite resource. We know when fisheries are depleted by continuous overfishing, it leads to the destruction of a fishery. Now try to imagine that at the scale of the biosphere. “This excess demand [for nature] is only about 50 years old. There’s been a great acceleration in that demand since the second world war. This experience is guiding policy and it’s a real mistake because it has come at a big expense to natural capital. The decline has not been recorded in statistics. It doesn’t show up in national accounts,” he added. “As an economist, I like to look at small societies as a prototype of the world economy. Studying poorer village economies tells you a lot: they are deeply dependent on natural capital. Many such societies have fallen under. We’ve seen this in Sudan with rainless areas, skinny cattle and people migrating miles and miles. It is not as if we don’t know what happens when nature breaks down.” Among the targets and goals agreed in Montreal by all governments, except the Vatican and the US, were aims to protect 30% of the planet for nature by the end of the decade, reform $500bn (£410bn) of environmentally damaging subsidies and restore 30% of the planet’s degraded terrestrial, inland water, coastal and marine ecosystems. Inger Andersen, executive director of the UN environment programme, said now was the time for action from governments and businesses to make the agreement reality. “We should be very proud of what was achieved. It is words on a piece of paper. We need to make them real. Everyone needs to adjust their targets and move this beyond the environment ministry to all sectors. It needs the whole of society. Action now has to be seen, not just in words,” she said. Dasgupta’s 2021 report, inspired by the 2006 Nicholas Stern review that transformed economic understanding of climate breakdown, found the world’s economies are being put at “extreme risk” by the failure to account for the state of the natural world, and called for radical reform. “I know there is a target to protect 30% of the planet in the [Cop15] deal. But the trouble with that is what happens to the other 70%. If you don’t have a policy for protecting the other 70%, you’re going to have huge pressure on it. It’s an interrelated biosphere. The 30% and the 70% are not disconnected. There are no big barriers – there’s not a Donald Trump wall between them,” he said. As part of the Cop15 agreement, large companies around the world are required to disclose the parts of their supply chains that rely on nature and take actions to mitigate any destruction, echoing a key recommendation of the Dasgupta report. “As citizens, we all want actions: what should the government do? What should the citizen do? What should the company do? What laws should be passed? We should insist on company disclosure of what’s happening in their supply chain. By doing so, you are sending a signal to your investors. And if they care about the fact that you’re trashing the rainforest in Brazil, they’ll punish you for it. But if they never know that you’re doing it, they won’t,” he said. Find more age of extinction coverage here, and follow biodiversity reporters Phoebe Weston and Patrick Greenfield on Twitter for all the latest news and features | ['environment/series/the-age-of-extinction', 'environment/cop15', 'environment/biodiversity', 'world/unitednations', 'environment/wildlife', 'environment/conservation', 'environment/environment', 'business/economics', 'uk/uk', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/patrick-greenfield', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-age-of-extinction'] | environment/series/the-age-of-extinction | BIODIVERSITY | 2023-06-20T05:00:33Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2018/dec/19/logging-of-old-growth-forests-should-stop-victorian-environment-department-says | Logging of old-growth forests should stop, Victorian environment department says | Logging in old-growth forests in Victoria should cease, according to testimony from the Victorian environment department in a court battle over logging in East Gippsland. The Fauna and Flora Research Collective is pursuing VicForests and the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning in the supreme court. The not-for-profit research collective claims the department and VicForests have not protected the minimum area of old-growth forest required by law in East Gippsland. Under cross-examination on Monday, the department’s deputy secretary for forest, fire and regions, Lee Miezis, admitted the department’s position was that old-growth logging in the state should cease. A document was presented to the court that outlined a policy to protect all remaining old-growth forests in Victoria by June 2018, a plan that has not eventuated. Peter Gray, acting for Environmental Justice Australia on behalf of the Fauna and Flora Research Collective, told the hearing that the policy document stated that timber harvesting in old-growth forests “is no longer considered socially acceptable by the Victorian community, nor is it considered environmental best practice”. “Do you agree that it’s not environment best practice to continue timber harvesting within our remaining old-growth forests?” he asked. “As the environment department, that would be the position we take,” Miezis said. “And we take that position knowing full well that the policy context as it is today is that … harvesting of old-growth forest is allowed … where it is outside of the CAR (comprehensive, adequate and representative) reserve system. “Our position, as the environment department, will be to advocate for the protection of all old-growth forest because … we believe it would have significant environmental benefits. “And one of the benefits is that, just intrinsically, old growth is an important piece of the environment.” The research collective’s case argues that the government has failed to meet its obligation to protect 60% of old-growth forest in East Gippsland. Andrew Lincoln, from the research collective, said it was home to plants and animals found nowhere else on earth and it was critical the remainder of the old-growth forests in the region were protected. “The environment department’s own policy recommends that logging in Victoria’s old-growth forests should have stopped six months ago yet they are still allowing VicForests to destroy what’s left of East Gippsland’s precious old-growth, and are fighting in Court to defend the practice,” he said. The case is expected to run into the new year. A spokesman for the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning said “the Victorian community would expect DELWP to be positive about the protection of Victoria’s old-growth forests”. “However, we are only one part of a whole-of-government approach to managing Victoria’s forests, which has a focus on, and a need to balance, positive outcomes for the environment while supporting viable and economic opportunity for Victorians, including consideration for the jobs, towns and communities those opportunities support,” he said. The environment minister, Lily D’Ambrosio, said: “We’ll continue to work with industry and conservation groups to protect our environment, and support the timber industry and the jobs and the towns that rely on it.” | ['environment/logging-and-land-clearing', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'australia-news/victoria', 'environment/environment', 'environment/forests', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/lisa-cox', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/logging-and-land-clearing | BIODIVERSITY | 2018-12-19T07:34:00Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
uk-news/2020/mar/06/weatherwatch-march-blizzard-england-surprise-1970 | Weatherwatch: how a March blizzard took England by surprise | Half a century ago, on 4 March 1970, an unexpected blizzard dumped more than 25cm of snow across central and south-east England overnight. Temperatures hovered around freezing and the snow settled, closing roads and airports. Morning trains from the Midlands arrived in London eight hours late. The problem was the lack of warning. The Met Office did not start issuing snow alerts until the early hours, and most people were caught unprepared. While winter storms can be forecast, determining whether they will bring rain or snow requires precise modelling. A slight change in temperature can have a big impact on what form the precipitation takes. Questions were asked in parliament about the snowfall. John Ellis, for the governing Labour party, was optimistic that the Met Office’s powerful new IBM computer might help predict such events in future. The Conservative MP Nigel Birch was dismissive: “He [Ellis] said that he wanted to know when the weather was about to be out of the ordinary. My experience of British weather is that it is always out of the ordinary, and it will take more than a dozen computers to alter that.” However, as the last 50 years have shown, better computers do improve weather forecasting, and we are now less likely to be surprised by unseasonal blizzards. | ['uk/weather', 'world/snow', 'uk/met-office', 'news/series/weatherwatch', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/davidhambling', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-weather'] | news/series/weatherwatch | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2020-03-06T21:30:47Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2010/nov/08/scientists-unite-climate-sceptics | US researchers fight to reclaim climate science message | Hundreds of scientists have signed up to two new campaigns that seek to regain control of the message about climate science. The two separate efforts come barely a week after midterm elections produced a new Congress that tilts strongly towards climate sceptics. The American Geophysical Union (AGU), the leading climate science organisation, is due to launch a new web service offering journalists accurate scientific information about climate change. The AGU is also working on an iPhone app. In a separate effort, scientists have recruited 40 colleagues for a "rapid response unit" whose members will give interviews or go on air to relay the science on climate change. Those involved in both initiatives deny a political agenda, and say their projects were in the works before the Republicans took the house of representatives. "AGU's climate science Q&A service addresses scientific questions only. It does not involve any commentary on policy," Peter Weiss a spokesman for the AGU said. "There is no campaign by AGU against climate sceptics or congressional conservatives." But with the new conservative majority in Congress threatening to investigate climate scientists and to block the Obama administration from regulating greenhouse gas emissions, the effort will inevitably touch on politics, said John Abraham of St Thomas University in Minnesota. "Our goal is not to become partisan. But if we are going to respond to denialists' claims which are unfounded in science then perhaps we are going to be viewed as going toe-to-toe with critics," he said. The AGU initiative is a re-run of the service offered last year in the run-up to the Copenhagen climate change summit. This year, the project, which will be staffed by about 700 volunteers, is intended to run for two to three months. The effort is a reflection of the enormous complexity of climate science and the difficulties of communicating with the public, said Katharine Hayhoe, a professor at Texas Tech University who is on the committee steering the AGU effort. "You can't be an expert in one area and be able to understand all of climate science. It is such a complicated topic nowadays," she said. "What the AGU is trying to do, because it is the premier scientific organisation in this field, is to translate the very latest science into terms people can understand." It is also an effort to overcome scientists' traditional reluctance to operate in the public arena. Abraham set up the rapid response unit with Scott Mandia of Suffolk County Community College in New York, and Ray Weymann of Carnegie University. The three say they will serve as a conduit for media seeking contact with climate experts. "The scientists I talk to are really scared. We are scared because we see a window for opportunity closing and it may be too late. I am not going to say the window is closing because of the election though. It's a physics problem," Abraham said. He has previously countered inaccuracies in lectures and congressional testimony from the Ukip deputy leader, Viscount Monckton. News of the initiatives, first reported in the Chicago Tribune on Sunday, brought strong reaction from climate sceptic websites. "Bring it on!" said Climate Depot. Democrats, especially those from coal states or the midwest, who voted for climate change bill in the house lost heavily in the elections. A majority of the Republican newcomers deny the existence of man-made climate change or oppose regulation of greenhouse gas emissions, according to an analysis by Think Progress. The new make-up of Congress has alarmed climate scientists such as Michael Mann, who have been targeted by sceptics. "There are legitimate uncertainties," Mann told a meeting of science writers at the weekend, "but unfortunately the public discourse right now is so far from scientific discourse." | ['environment/climate-change-scepticism', 'us-news/us-news', 'tone/news', 'science/scienceofclimatechange', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'science/science', 'environment/environment', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'profile/suzannegoldenberg'] | environment/climate-change-scepticism | CLIMATE_DENIAL | 2010-11-08T11:18:45Z | true | CLIMATE_DENIAL |
environment/2011/jun/17/uk-drought-wettest-week-rainfall | UK drought washed away by wettest week since winter | The wettest week since winter has washed away the drought in some parts of the country, but restrictions remain in force, with Anglia still suffering. More rain fell in England and Wales in the last week than at any time since the start of February, alleviating the drought that has affected areas across the middle of the country. Most of the rainfall came in south Wales and the south-west of England, two of the areas worst hit by the dry spell. But central and eastern England have still had less than half their average rainfall for the time of year, and Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire, parts of Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire and western Norfolk remain in official drought status. Trevor Bishop, head of water resources at the Environment Agency, said: "While the rainfall this week will not reverse the effects of the dry spring, it has provided welcome water for crops, gardens and rivers across areas affected by or at risk of drought." Last week, the Environment Agency was ready to advocate raising Wales, the south-west and the Midlands to drought status. However, heavy rains came just ahead of the expected announcement last Friday, and have continued, which means these regions are now unlikely to be in imminent danger of drought. Experts warned the next few weeks would be crucial, however. Farmers have already been hit by the drought conditions, with the National Farmers' Union suggesting that the average English wheat yield in 2011 could be down by 14% on 2010 to around 6.5 tonnes per hectare, which would rank among the lowest since the late 1980s. Ian Backhouse, combinable crops chairman at the NFU, said: "I believe this year's forecast yield decrease was largely due to poor growing conditions since winter. Farmers are clearly concerned about the impact on the ground of this abnormally dry spring [and even] with the recent rainfall we fear the damage has already been done." He said the barley crop would also be hit, particularly in terms of quality. A poor wheat harvest is likely to raise food prices, and poor barley could increase the price of beer, brewers have warned. Meat prices may also rise as livestock farmers struggle with feedstock. Farmers and some other businesses are still banned from taking water from rivers or underground sources in many areas of the country, though higher river flows have meant some have had restrictions lifted. Rivers whose flow is below average for the time of year include the Dove and Derwent in central England, Tone and Frome in the south west and the Coln in the Thames Valley. Across much of the country, the soils are "exceptionally dry" after England's driest spring in a century, according to the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology. This means it will take much longer than usual for the land to recover, even if strong rainfall continues. Scotland, meanwhile, had its wettest spring on record. Bishop warned that the situation could yet turn worse. "Without further sustained rainfall, river flows will drop again, which could harm wildlife and increase the impact of pollution incidents. Our teams remain on alert to respond to the environmental impacts of the drought," he said. | ['environment/drought', 'tone/news', 'environment/environment', 'environment/water', 'uk/uk', 'uk/weather', 'type/article', 'profile/fiona-harvey'] | environment/drought | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2011-06-17T15:19:29Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
world/2021/jul/26/far-right-accused-of-aiding-german-floods-clear-up-to-win-support | Far-right accused of aiding German floods clear-up to win support | Far-right groups in Germany including Covid vaccine opponents and supporters of the rightwing, populist AfD party are reportedly attempting to win support by offering assistance to salvage operations in flood-stricken parts of the country. About 30,000 people remain homeless or without water and electricity in large parts of the states of North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate as a result of the floods that devastated swathes of Germany just under two weeks ago. An investigation by a team of reporters on the ground for the news weekly Der Spiegel found that social media channels operated by the so-called Querdenker (lateral thinker) organisation, which includes vaccination opponents and preppers (people who prepare for catastrophic events), have put out calls for helpers to travel to Ahrweiler in Rhineland-Palatinate, one of the worst-hit areas. According to the report, the groups say help is needed because official organisations such as the fire brigade, police, the army and the voluntary Technisches Hilfswerk (THW) brigade are failing to provide sufficient help and are even hindering attempts by volunteers to get to the scene. On top of clean-up operations, the groups are reportedly offering to help with childcare and delivering medicines and warm food. “Volkskraft voraus” (people power to the fore) is among the slogans being used. Some activists have reportedly taken to turning up at the disaster scene in vehicles and fake uniforms making them appear to be either members of the German military or the police. Reporters spotted a car painted in white and blue markings strikingly similar to a standard police car, but badged as a “Peace Vehicle”. Via a megaphone, one of the passengers made the announcement that they had come to help out because the number of official rescue workers was being wound down – a claim the police and other emergency services have flatly denied. Many of those affected by the flooding are not in a position to question the activists’ allegations because power is still down, making access to the internet or mainstream media difficult. Officials in Ahrweiler and other affected towns have been reluctant to comment, not least because so many people have stepped in to help with the clear-up operations, a large number of whom have sacrificed their holidays to do so. Sabine Lackner, the deputy head of THW, said many of its 6,500 volunteers had “physically and psychologically reached their limits”. They were on average working 12-hour days, she said, and she expected they would be working at full capacity for weeks to come. “We’re in discussion with the authorities about which bridges with which priority have to be rebuilt,” she told Der Spiegel, “and about precisely what we can do, until the professionals – many of whose businesses have been affected – are able to work again. Everything has been destroyed.” She said attempts had been made by activists to intimidate THW volunteers by filming and photographing them “and claiming that state bodies are doing nothing to help the people and only they are doing anything”. “The THW has entered villages after days in which they have been cut off, and experienced residents who are really angry because they have the feeling no one is taking care of them. That I can understand,” she said. Lackner said the anger had much to do with the sheer scale of the challenges being faced. In 20 years of dealing with floods and other catastrophes, she said: “I have never experienced anything as bad as this.” | ['world/germany', 'world/far-right', 'environment/flooding', 'world/europe-news', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/kateconnolly', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-foreign'] | environment/flooding | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2021-07-26T14:26:29Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
world/2013/jun/14/pressing-items-g8-agenda | Letters: Pressing items for the G8 agenda | If it has been accepted since Gleneagles that Africans should determine their own future (Promise of aid, 13 June), then why has the EU has been trying to impose on them for more than 10 years a trade deal which is not in their interest? Instead of responding to the concerns raised, two months ago Europe said: take the deal or lose your preferential access to the EU. For African countries, the message seems to be: supply us with your raw materials, give us access to your vast natural resources, allow us to cater to your consumers – we'll even throw in a bit of aid to ensure that our subsided goods cross the region's borders more quickly. This is all too familiar. Trade is the elephant in the room. Make Poverty History failed to persuade the G8 to deliver anything meaningful on trade, and the 2013 G8 leadership is ignoring the role of trade for development. Having moved far beyond discussions of imports and exports, bilateral trade deals are now determining who gets what piece of the global value chain. Change will come from African leaders who will ensure that regional trade, contributing to domestic development, comes before any trade deal with G8 countries. Paul Spray Director, policy and programmes, Traidcraft, Gateshead • G8 leaders must find a solution to the Syria crisis when they meet in Northern Ireland next week (Report, 14 June). Instead of fanning the flames of the conflict by sending more weapons to Syria and risking an arms race, leaders should be prioritising the pursuit of a political solution and making the proposed Geneva peace conference a reality. A staggering 5,000 people a month are dying. More than 8 million people are in need of humanitarian aid, many out of reach of help because of the fighting. Sending more arms to either side will only increase the bloodshed. When Presidents Obama and Putin meet at the G8 they will have an opportunity to make the Geneva conference a reality and have a genuine impact on the lives of ordinary Syrians. Mark Goldring Chief executive, Oxfam • Colombia is a country rich in natural resources but we are aware of the increasing need the world has for energy and raw materials. The recent mining boom here has brought with it a web of payments (Report, 12 June) to government and local authorities that are difficult to trace and often bring no benefits to the local communities. My country has already suffered from more than 50 years of conflict. The secrecy surrounding mining deals creates more uncertainty, especially in the most vulnerable communities whose lands and homes are often under threat and who continue to live in poverty despite the enormous wealth of resources around them. The EU's new transparency legislation, requiring extractive companies to publish details of payments they make to national governments is a great victory, not just for our communities but for civil society partners such as Cafod which fought to deliver it. Transparency can now become a tool in fighting for justice, reducing conflict and offering a more stable environment for business. We now need the G8 leaders to go further and make progress towards a global standard on transparency in the extractives sector. Only effective legislation of this industry can start our journey of hope to flourish as a people and a nation. Hector Fabio Director, Caritas Colombia, Bogota, Colombia • Congratulations to the UK for taking the lead in urging the G8 to tackle the growth of antibiotic-resistant bacteria (Report, 12 June). We urge the G8 to recognise the need to phase out the regular prophylactic use of antibiotics in healthy animals and to minimise the use of those antibiotics classified by the World Health Organisation as "critically important" for human medicine. Instead, disease should be prevented by good hygiene, husbandry and housing. Good health should be promoted by avoiding overcrowding and excessive herd and flock sizes. Peter Stevenson Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics | ['world/g8', 'world/world', 'world/africa', 'world/wto', 'business/business', 'world/syria', 'world/middleeast', 'world/colombia', 'world/americas', 'business/mining', 'environment/mining', 'environment/environment', 'society/antibiotics', 'society/society', 'tone/letters', 'type/article', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/editorialsandreply'] | environment/mining | ENERGY | 2013-06-14T19:59:02Z | true | ENERGY |
us-news/2024/oct/09/hurricane-milton-makes-landfall-florida | Hurricane Milton: nearly 3.3 million without power in Florida as category 3 storm makes landfall | A weakening but still tremendously powerful Hurricane Milton slammed into Florida’s west coast on Wednesday night as a category 3, leaving millions of homes without power, while bringing “catastrophic” winds likely to cause significant property damage. The hurricane, described earlier in the day by Joe Biden as “the storm of the century”, made landfall near Sarasota, Florida, just after 8.30pm ET, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) in Miami said. The storm brought potentially deadly storm surge to much of Florida’s Gulf coast, particularly Sarasota and Fort Myers, but largely spared more densely populated areas such as Tampa and St Petersburg to the north. Despite losing some of its potency to wind shear as it neared the coast, Milton, which had churned in the Gulf of Mexico over the last two days as a category 5 storm, was still one of the strongest hurricanes to strike the US mainland in recent memory. It was also the second direct hit on Florida in 12 days, after Hurricane Helene’s deadly rampage through the state’s panhandle towards Georgia and the Carolinas beginning on 27 September. Areas devastated by Helene received another pounding as Milton swept ashore with winds above 120mph. On Wednesday night, a flash flood emergency was in effect for the Tampa Bay area including the cities of Tampa, St Petersburg and Clearwater, the hurricane center said, with St Petersburg already receiving 16.6in (42cm) of rain on Wednesday. So large was its wind field that areas in south Florida, hundreds of miles from Milton’s core, saw dozens of tornado warnings, and at least seven twisters on the ground. In Fort Myers, a tornado spawned in Milton’s outer bands ripped the roof from a house. With the storm coming ashore before high tide, Florida governor Ron DeSantis said he hoped the west coast of the state would avoid the worst predicted storm surge. Forecasters said seawater could rise as high as 13ft (four metres), but on Thursday DeSantis said the worst affected county, Sarasota, saw 8-10ft. The tornadoes caused damage in numerous counties, and destroyed about 125 homes, most of them mobile homes, DeSantis said. More than 3.3m homes and businesses in Florida were without power on Thursday morning, according to poweroutage.us. “At this point, it’s too dangerous to evacuate safely, so you have to shelter in place and just hunker down,” DeSantis said upon announcing the landfall. Authorities had warned for days of Milton’s deadly potential, ordering an evacuation of millions of people in coastal areas along west Florida’s Gulf coast vulnerable to the predicted storm surge. Jane Castor, the mayor of Tampa, issued a sobering alert to those in evacuation zones choosing to stay, telling them their homes would become their coffins. William Tokajer, police chief of Holmes Beach, advised holdouts to write their names, dates of birth and social security numbers on their limbs with Sharpies to help identify their bodies after the storm. DeSantis declared a state of emergency for 51 of the state’s 67 counties. “It’s looking like the storm of the century,” Biden said in an address from the White House in which he urged those in the storm’s path to heed safety advice from local authorities. “It’s literally a matter of life and death”. The president also condemned falsehoods repeated by Donald Trump, the Republican candidate in next month’s election, that federal recovery funds were being redirected to immigrants. “What a ridiculous thing to say,” Biden said. Milton remained a hurricane as it crossed Florida to the east in the early hours of Thursday, passing south of the popular tourist destination of Orlando before emerging into the Atlantic. “Heavy rainfall across the central to northern Florida peninsula through this morning continues to bring the risk of considerable flash and urban flooding along with moderate to major river flooding,” the NHC said in a Thursday morning advisory. | ['us-news/hurricane-milton', 'us-news/us-news', 'us-news/florida', 'us-news/us-weather', 'world/hurricanes', 'world/extreme-weather', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/richardluscombe', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-news', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/west-coast-news'] | world/hurricanes | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2024-10-10T13:19:34Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/keep-it-in-the-ground-blog/2015/apr/17/edward-norton-and-caroline-lucas-back-guardian-climate-campaign | Edward Norton and Caroline Lucas back Guardian climate campaign | Edward Norton, the actor and director known for films such as American History X, Birdman and Fight Club, has joined the Guardian’s campaign to keep fossil fuels in the ground. He told us why: “it’s time to change the paradigm and stop ruining the world for our kids”. Caroline Lucas, Green Party MP in Brighton Pavillion agrees, paying tribute to the campaign at our You Talk They Listen election event at the University of Sussex on Wednesday. We were also delighted to discover a Sussex University divestment campaign in the audience. Lucas told us: “this is a bold and urgent campaign and I urge everyone to join it. It’s about climate and social justice right now – and, ultimately, the home we plan to leave for our children and theirs to inhabit. What can be more important?” 180,000 reasons to divest Norton and Lucas join other high profile people who have backed the campaign, including activist Bianca Jagger, actor Tilda Swinton and chef Yotam Ottolenghi. But they are just five people – there are 180,000 others who have signed our petition so far. We thought it was time to let the world’s biggest charitable foundations know what a movement like that looks like. So we have published all of the names of those people – from 170 countries around the world – who are asking the Wellcome Trust and the Gates Foundation to divest from fossil fuels and their reasons why. Can you find yourself among them? Keep it in the ground in the news The campaign has been hitting the headlines in the US. Guardian editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger appeared on CNN on Wednesday and was also interviewed for NPR’s programme On the Media. You can listen here. He has also appealed to scientists to speak up about divestment in the science journal Nature. In case you missed it... Hitting the front page this week was an announcement by the World Bank, which is calling on governments to stop subsidising the fossil fuel industry. Speaking to the Guardian, President Jim Yong Kim said: “We have a whole new generation which is interested in climate change. Fossil fuel subsidies send out a terrible signal: burn more carbon.” We also revealed the billions that BP invested in green energy projects in the 80s and 90s – which they then abandoned, locking away the research in the process. The divestment movement was alive and kicking in the US this week, with the launch of a week of direct action on the campus of Harvard, the world’s richest university. Meanwhile in the UK, the University of Edinburgh edged closer to divestment from coal and tar sands companies. Are you a climate denier? We haven’t forgotten you. In fact, we’ve created you a personalised guide to getting rich from fossil fuel divestment. Ever wondered how much fossil fuel has been used in your lifetime? Find out here. You can even embed the interactive on your own website. Stay in touch Do you have the Guardian’s app on your phone? If you want to keep up to date on the campaign, you can add it to your home screen. Our digital director Wolfgang Blau explains how: Got an idea for the Keep it in the Ground campaign? Email the team at [email protected] | ['environment/keep-it-in-the-ground-blog', 'environment/series/keep-it-in-the-ground', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/fossil-fuel-divestment', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tone/blog', 'profile/emma-e-howard'] | environment/fossil-fuel-divestment | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM | 2015-04-17T08:39:00Z | true | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM |
environment/2020/oct/06/uk-set-for-burst-of-vivid-autumn-colours-after-sunny-september | UK set for burst of vivid autumn colours after sunny September | A spectacular and prolonged autumn display of colour is predicted for the UK’s parks and gardens thanks to good sunny spells in the spring and September and some nurturing dampness in the summer. The golds, reds, purples, russets and oranges that provide a burst of joy before the winter months are likely to be particularly vivid this year, the National Trust said. Happily, this weekend’s storms should not ruin the show because most trees have not reached the point of leaf senescence, or degradation, where the high winds might have stripped them bare. One of the most spectacular displays may be at Stourhead in Wiltshire, where exotic species such as tulip and katsura trees stand alongside natives such as oak, beech and birch. Toby Yorke, a senior gardener at Stourhead, said: “In autumn the tulip tree’s leaves gradually become a vivid yellow, ending up almost golden near the end of October. Meanwhile, the katsura trees are dropping their heart-shaped leaves and releasing a lovely sweet scent of candy floss.” Tom Hill, who looks after sites at Winkworth Arboretum in Surrey and Petworth Park in West Sussex, said: “We’re starting to see some of the maple trees start to turn – from greens to reds and oranges. The whole hillside at Winkworth lights up in a kaleidoscope of colour. Acers and maples are the stars while liquidambar [American sweetgum] leaves turn crimson, orange and purple.” At Mount Stewart in Northern Ireland, the assistant head gardener, Oliver Johnson, said he loved the light at this time of year. “It comes in low, gentle bronze rays picking out the nooks of the wrinkled bark of oaks and the hammered metal texture of the Scots pines and is radiated back to the world by the startling orange bark of the Luma apiculata, the Chilean myrtles.” Simon Toomer, a plant specialist at the trust, said autumn in the northern hemisphere was one of the natural world’s great spectacles. “It starts in the far northern deciduous forests and progresses southwards to the warm temperate regions over about a 10-week period,” he said. “The primary trigger for trees to begin the process of shutting down for the winter and shedding leaves is day length, but weather conditions through the summer and early autumn affect the rate of leaf loss and intensity of colour.” Toomer said it was important for people to get out into nature, especially at this difficult time. “With the evenings already drawing in and with the potential of further localised lockdowns due to coronavirus, it’s more important than ever that we take the time to notice nature and to drink in the colourful landscapes that we can see at this time of year,” he said. “Together with the particular dusky, heavy scent of autumn and the sounds of crisp leaves crunching under foot, will all serve to help our wellbeing through the next few colder, darker months.” | ['environment/autumn', 'environment/forests', 'uk/national-trust', 'environment/environment', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/stevenmorris', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-home-news'] | environment/forests | BIODIVERSITY | 2020-10-05T23:01:53Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2017/sep/16/legal-claims-grow-exposure-at-work-to-toxic-diesel-fumes | UK legal claims grow over exposure at work to toxic diesel fumes | Legal claims over exposure to diesel exhaust fumes at work are growing as unions warn toxic air in the workplace is a ticking time bomb on a par with asbestos. Royal Mail and at least one local authority are among major employers who are being sued over their alleged failure to protect staff from the damaging health effects of diesel pollution from vehicles. More cases are lined up, according to lawyers and unions involved in supporting workers. Dan Shears, health and safety director for the GMB union, said: “We strongly believe it is a major problem. It needs a test case and then there will be an increase in claims. It’s almost like the early days of asbestos. “There are potentially lots of people who have unnecessarily suffered premature death who may have been affected by industrial exposure. We are now with diesel in the same place we were with asbestos in the 1930s.” Five years ago the International Agency for Research in Cancer (IARC) classified diesel engine exhaust emissions as carcinogenic to humans. That classification, combined with growing awareness over the damaging effects of diesel air pollution, the revelations in the VW emissions scandal, and research that shows some diesel cars have been emitting about six times more NOx on the road than is allowed in lab tests, has led to increasing numbers of employees considering action. In one case Parcelforce Worldwide, part of Royal Mail Group Limited, is being sued for negligence for allegedly breaching health and safety regulations designed to protect employees from exposure to hazardous substances. Under the Control of Substance Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002 (COSHH), all employers have a legal duty to prevent exposure to substances that can cause health problems. The claimant is a Parcelforce employee who worked at a major depot where he says he was exposed daily to diesel exhaust pollution for eight hours a shift. He says the exposure led him to develop asthma, and provides medical evidence to support his claim. “Throughout the course of his employment the claimant was exposed to, ingested and breathed diesel exhaust fumes and particulate and other combustion gases from numerous vehicles passing through the out gate … the claimant’s face, skin and clothing would become contaminated with diesel particulates. Any drinks left by the booth window would develop a black film very quickly,” the claim states. The claimant, who is 47, said no protection was provided by his employers in the form of ventilation in his booth or protective equipment. With the backing of the Communication Workers Union he is taking action against Royal Mail, whom he said failed to advise him of the dangers of exposure to diesel fumes, failed to carry out a risk assessment of where he worked, failed to monitor the air quality at all until 2015, and failed to take action to protect him. His lawyer, Phillip Gower of Simpson Millar, said: “There is certainly an increase in awareness about the dangers of exposure to environmental fumes … we have seen an increase in the number of enquiries from clients who have been exposed to diesel fumes, car exhaust fumes and pollution at work … anyone exposed to excessive amounts of diesel fumes at work does have a potential claim.” A Royal Mail Group spokesperson said: “Royal Mail Group can confirm that a Parcelforce Worldwide employee has submitted a claim alleging that diesel fumes have contributed to his asthma. Royal Mail Group has denied liability and is robustly defending this claim. “We are a responsible employer and we take the security, health and safety of our employees working throughout our organisation very seriously.” Workplaces where staff are at increased risk include garages, bus depots, ferries and warehouses. Christchurch Borough council is being sued over alleged failure to protect a tractor driver from toxic diesel fumes which were said to be leaking into his cab for more than two years after it was left with holes in the floor panels after a service. The claimant drove the tractor for two and a half years. He claims that when it was eventually tested, it was found that exhaust fumes including carbon monoxide and nitrogen dioxide fumes were entering the cab. The legal case states that the claimant’s symptoms were caused and exacerbated by the breach of health regulations and negligence of his employer. Judith Plumley, head of community and leisure at Christchurch and East Dorset councils, said “We are aware of this case, but due to ongoing legal proceedings we are unable to comment further at this time.” Britain’s largest trade union, Unite, said exposure to diesel fumes was a ticking time bomb. The union has set up a diesel emissions register so employees can record their exposure to toxic air. A study by the union has revealed that affected workers are reporting short term health effects which include wheezing, respiratory problems, eye irritation, nausea and headache. Long term problems recorded include reduced lung capacity, breathlessness and asthma. Unite’s assistant general secretary for transport Diana Holland said: “If it can be proved that the health of workers has been damaged due to exposure to diesel fumes, Unite will consider taking legal action on behalf of our members.” | ['environment/pollution', 'law/law', 'business/royal-mail', 'society/asthma', 'society/health', 'business/business', 'environment/environment', 'society/society', 'politics/tradeunions', 'business/vw-volkswagen', 'business/automotive-industry', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/sandralaville', 'profile/sarah-marsh', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/pollution | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2017-09-16T06:30:05Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
world/2007/oct/23/usa.international | Hollywood flees as wildfires sweep coast of California | More than 250,000 people were urged to flee their homes across southern California yesterday as brush fires fuelled by fierce desert winds continued to sweep through the state, destroying swaths of San Diego county including nearly 130 homes. At least one person, thought to be a migrant attempting to cross the border from Mexico, was killed in the fires. A pair of wildfires consumed 128 homes in the mountain resort area of Lake Arrowhead, in the San Bernardino national forest east of Los Angeles. "We're stretched very thin and we can't get any planes up," said a forest spokesman, John Miller. State officials called in the national guard. Air quality plummeted as winds of up to 90mph deposited ash and soot across the area. Low brown clouds darkened the skies on what would have been a clear, sunny day. Power lines brought down by the high winds were thought to be responsible for sparking the fires at the weekend, although fire officials blamed arsonists for some of the fiercest blazes in Orange county south of Los Angeles. Local television stations turned their schedules over to cover the fires, with helicopter shots showing lines of fire snaking across the canyons that reach inland from the Pacific Ocean. The fires stretched from Tecate on the Mexican border to Santa Barbara county, almost 200 miles to the north. Some 40,000 acres had been burned by yesterday morning, forcing the evacuation of thousands of residents and the closure of schools in several areas. In Malibu, where 1,500 residents were evacuated, a church was destroyed by fire - as was a mock turreted "Scottish" castle, an ornate local landmark which was on the market for $17m. The owner, Lilly Lawrence, daughter of a former Iranian oil minister, took mementoes from the property, including Elvis Presley's army fatigues. "My parents taught me not to allow my possessions to possess me," she told local TV. "So, that's the story. The house is a house." News pictures showed some of the rich and famous of Malibu, including the film producer Jeffrey Katzenberg, dousing their homes with fire retardant. The fierce winds, which calmed overnight on Sunday but picked up yesterday morning, carried burning embers across the Pacific Coast highway towards the exclusive beachfront properties. "We're at the mercy of the wind," Malibu's mayor, Pamela Conley Ulich, told reporters on Sunday night. Firefighters yesterday estimated that the blaze was only 10% contained. The brush fires are an annual event in southern California, fuelled by the Santa Ana desert winds. The Santa Anas carry warm air from the desert to the coast, drying out the land as they pass and spreading the fires. Despite recent rains, southern California, like all of the western US, is experiencing a severe drought. "This was a conflagration that we knew was coming at some point," the Los Angeles county supervisor, Zev Yaroslavsky, told reporters. The high winds were expected to continue at least until this afternoon, and authorities said it could take several more days to control the fires. | ['world/world', 'us-news/us-news', 'us-news/california', 'world/wildfires', 'type/article', 'profile/danglaister', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/international'] | world/wildfires | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2007-10-23T00:26:21Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2021/jul/07/cop26-young-people-to-interview-ministers-on-stage-government-says | Cop26: young people to interview ministers on stage, government says | Young people will interview government ministers on stage as part of plans to make this autumn’s climate change summit the “most inclusive ever”, the government has announced. A whole day will be dedicated to listening to the views of selected young climate activists at Cop26, the global summit due to be held in Glasgow in November. The event will heavily feature the “marginalised generation”, many of whom have said they have been ignored by governments. Allegra Stratton, the prime minister’s Cop26 spokesperson, said she hoped it would be the most inclusive Cop ever with people of all ages invited to join the discussions. Stratton was originally chosen to front the prime minister’s televised press conferences, but when these were scrapped she was given job of promoting and helping to organise Cop26. She has thrown herself into the role with gusto, recently throwing out all of her plastic bathroom products in favour of shampoo bars in aid of her “One Step Greener” initiative. High-profile figures will be asked to take one step in their lives to reduce their carbon footprint. Government officials from around the globe, including UK ministers, will be interrogated by young people during the youth climate day. One young climate activist who will not be attending is Greta Thunberg, who has argued that the conference should be either postponed or held in a more accessible way as many countries do not have the same access to vaccines and safe travel. Officials behind the conference say they are still working out a way to “ensure her voice is heard”. They are selecting young voices for the youth day, but recent campaigners Stratton has been in conversation with include the UK nature and climate campaigner Bella Lack, who recently spearheaded an initiative to buy part of the Chocó rainforest in Colombia; Liz Wathuti from Kenya, who was behind a campaign to plant 30,000 tree seedlings; and India Logan-Riley from New Zealand, who campaigns on climate change and indigenous rights. Young activists have moved the needle on the climate change discussion in recent years, most notably during the school strikes organised by Thunberg. Each day of the intensive two-week climate negotiations will focus on a different theme. Some examples include clean energy, zero-emission transport and protecting nature, as well as ensuring that the participation of women, girls and young people is at the centre of climate action. Experts will discuss other more technical themes such as science, innovation and inclusivity, as well as the need to mitigate climate change, adapt to its impacts, and mobilise public and private finance. The Cop26 president, Alok Sharma, said: “The Cop26 summit in Glasgow is our best hope of safeguarding the planet for everyone, building a brighter future and keeping the 1.5C target alive. “I have been pleased to see progress and momentum on the four key goals I have been taking to governments across the world, and the presidency programme will continue this throughout the two weeks of the summit. From finance to energy and gender to adaptation, these are vital issues that need to be addressed to make Cop26 inclusive and successful.” | ['environment/cop26-glasgow-climate-change-conference-2021', 'environment/global-climate-talks', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'uk/uk', 'environment/environment', 'politics/politics', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/helena-horton', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/global-climate-talks | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2021-07-07T09:30:29Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
environment/2014/jul/02/recycling-target-uk-councils-waste-europe | UK councils could be required to recycle 70% of waste by 2030 | Councils will have to recycle 70% of household waste by the end of the next decade, under proposals unveiled on Wednesday by the European commission. This would require a significant increase in the proportion of UK waste diverted from landfill. At least 80% of packaging waste will also have to be recycled by 2030, as Brussels toughens its stance on the amount of rubbish buried underground. By 2025, there would be a total ban on sending waste to landfill that could have been recycled. The new targets will be difficult for the UK to meet, as recycling rates have recently stagnated after a period of rapid growth in the past decade. According to figures released by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) in November, 43.2% of waste in England was recycled in 2012-13. That figure was just 12% in 2001 but the UK is still well behind Austria and Germany, which recycle 63% and 62% of their waste respectively. The coalition government has been notably hostile to moves to try to improve recycling rates through fortnightly bin collections and charges on unrecycled rubbish. Eric Pickles, secretary of state for communities and local government, declared in 2012: “I firmly believe that it is the right of every English man and woman that their chicken tikka masala, the nation’s favourite dish, the remnants can be put in the bin without the worry that a fortnight later it is rotting and making life unpleasant.” Green campaigners said the plans did not go far enough, and that more ambitious targets would stimulate the industry and provide greater economic benefits, and sooner. But the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs sent a strong signal that it could resist the targets when they are debated. A spokesman told the Guardian: “We think the commission’s proposals may have underplayed the potential costs to business, householders and local authorities and will want to consider the impacts fully before we respond. “While we support efforts to reduce waste we need to ensure that any new legislation would meet our priorities to protect the environment, incentivise growth and avoid unnecessary burdens.” Steve Lee, of the Chartered Institute of Waste Management, said meeting the targets for the UK would be a challenge requiring “leadership and ambition” from the government. He called on ministers to create “a stable framework” to encourage the investment that would be needed from the private sector in the UK’s waste-management infrastructure, including new recycling plants. A key part of the plan is to develop better markets for recycled materials. At present, much of what is recycled is returned to use in a low-grade manner – for instance, recycled glass in the UK is often used as a component in road-building materials, rather than turned back into bottles. This assigns a low value to the waste. If markets were better developed, then recyclates from metals to plastics could be sold as a resource in place of virgin materials. Janez Potocčnik, European commissioner for the environment, said: “We are living with economic systems inherited from the 19th century [while today’s world is characterised by] emerging economies, millions of new middle-class consumers and interconnected markets. If we want to compete we have to get the most out of our resources, and that means recycling them back into productive use, not burying them in landfills as waste.” The commission believes that the new targets could create more than half a million new jobs in waste management across the EU. The targets will also encompass plans to combat marine litter, which is a serious hazard to aquatic life including seabirds, whales and dolphins, and food waste, which can be used to create compost and fertiliser or to generate energy from capturing the methane it produces as it rots. Wednesday’s proposals, which will have to be debated by member states and MEPs before they can come into force, are part of an EU-wide move to a “circular economy”, in which materials once used are turned back into something productive. This involves processes that are harder to put in place than simply dumping rubbish, such as providing ways for products - from consumer electronics to cars - to be reused and repaired rather than simply broken up for scrap. Potočnik warned that although this would create profitable businesses, the “circular economy” was unlikely to spring into being if simply left to the market: “It is profitable, but that does not mean it will happen without the right policies. The 2030 targets that we propose are about taking action today to accelerate the transition to a circular economy and exploiting the business and job opportunities it offers.” The commission has also pledged to support new research and development in the waste management and recycling industries, and in improving the design of products to make them easier to reuse, repair and recycle. This will be done through the Horizon 2020 programme which funds innovative technology and new business processes, but officials did not say how much this funding was likely to be worth. At present, many companies have a vested interest in ensuring their products are difficult to reuse, in order to encourage consumers to buy new models. Some existing legislation, including the directive on electronic waste, aims to counter this by forcing manufacturers to take responsibility for their products throughout their life cycle, including what happens to them when they are thrown away. | ['environment/recycling', 'environment/waste', 'environment/ethical-living', 'environment/environment', 'uk/uk', 'world/european-commission', 'world/eu', 'world/europe-news', 'world/world', 'society/localgovernment', 'politics/politics', 'society/society', 'tone/news', 'type/article', 'profile/fiona-harvey', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews'] | environment/recycling | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2014-07-02T17:04:00Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
business/2015/may/21/magnox-nuclear-decommissioning-consortium-cut-1600-jobs | Magnox nuclear decommissioning consortium to cut up to 1,600 jobs | The new private consortium that recently won the £4.2bn management contract for the decommissioning of 12 Magnox nuclear power stations has revealed plans to cut up to 1,600 jobs. Cavendish Nuclear, a division of Babcock International, plus its US partner Fluor, said the cuts reflected “planned stepdowns in the work programme” at a number of atomic sites around the UK. The move comes amid speculation that Babcock is preparing to demand millions of pounds of extra subsidies from the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) on the grounds that the workload was much heavier than anticipated. Unions expressed shock that staff, agency and contract workers would lose their jobs between now and September 2016, although the Cavendish Fluor Partnership said it would try to find some alternative posts. Eleven of the plants have already shut down and the remaining one in operation – Wylfa on Anglesey in North Wales – is due to stop generating power at the end of the year. Industry experts said other plants were getting to the end of defuelling and other activities that had required staffing to be increased. “These proposed reductions arise from planned stepdowns in the work programme at a number of sites and the implementation of a more streamlined operating model for delivering decommissioning,” said the consortium in a statement. “We will seek wherever possible for these reductions to be through voluntary means and we will endeavour to retrain staff in roles where we are currently reliant on agency resources.” Gary Smith, national secretary for energy at the GMB union, which has about 600 members at Magnox, told Sky News: “Some of these job losses have been planned for quite some time. Others will come as a shock, particularly for the workforce employed on temporary contracts. We’re pleased that the first tranche of job losses will be on voluntary basis. But this will be a tough time for a lot of Magnox workers.” The NDA said it was confident that the contract would deliver savings for the taxpayer of around £1bn compared with the previous plan over the full 14-year period and “well above the competition’s original target to secure 10% off the baseline costs”. The Cavendish Fluor Partnership won the contract to manage the 12 Magnox sites last September in a bitter battle against the incumbent, Energy Solutions. When it lost out, Energy Solutions launched a legal challenge. Problems with the decommissioning of the separate Sellafield site in Cumbria have recently led to the private consortium there which includes Amec and Areva of France – being thrown off the management contract. The 12 nuclear power sites managed by the Cavendish consortium for Magnox include Berkeley, Gloucestershire; Bradwell, Essex; and Hinkley Point A in Somerset. EDF last month announced plans to cut 400 construction jobs at the site of the planned new atomic plant of Hinkley Point C. The reduction in workers comes amid continuing delays over a final investment decision on the £24.5bn project as negotiations with potential investors continue to move more slowly than expected. | ['business/energy-industry', 'environment/energy', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'environment/nuclearpower', 'business/job-losses', 'business/babcockinternationalgroup', 'tone/news', 'business/business', 'profile/terrymacalister', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/financial3'] | environment/nuclearpower | ENERGY | 2015-05-21T18:29:20Z | true | ENERGY |
news/2021/sep/02/hurricanes-ida-and-nora-leave-their-mark-in-north-and-central-america | Hurricanes Ida and Nora leave their mark in North and Central America | The end of last week saw significant hurricane activity in North and Central America. Hurricane Ida swept through Cuba as a category 1 hurricane on Friday and then continued to gain in intensity as it tracked through the Gulf of Mexico on Saturday, building up to a category 4 hurricane by Sunday morning. Sustained winds reached 150mph and all flights to and from New Orleans airport were cancelled. Significant damage occurred along the Louisiana and Mississippi coasts including collapsing buildings and intense flooding from the storm surge. On the same day that Ida devastated Louisiana, along the west coast of Mexico Hurricane Nora made its way north towards the Gulf of California as a category 1 hurricane, bringing sustained winds of up to 75mph. This led to widespread damage including the collapse of a hotel building and the subsequent death of a teenager visiting from Spain. Tyndrum, in Scotland, had the UK’s highest temperature for August 2021, reaching an underwhelming 27.2C on the 25th. It is not often that the UK maximum temperature occurs outside of England. However, the high pressure that brought the UK maximum temperature to Scotland also brought unseasonably high temperatures to north-east Iceland. Hallormsstaður in eastern Iceland reached 29.4C, beating the previous August record. | ['news/series/weatherwatch', 'world/hurricanes', 'weather/usa', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-weather'] | world/hurricanes | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2021-09-02T05:00:15Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
business/2021/feb/28/stellantis-old-school-car-factories-gear-up-for-the-shock-of-electric | Old-school Stellantis car factories gear up for the shock of electric | Carlos Tavares is an unashamed petrolhead, with a rally-racing hobby that harks back to an earlier automotive age. Yet carmakers like Stellantis, which he leads, and its rivals have had to set aside affection for roaring internal combustion engines as environmental rules set the limits for the industry. Stellantis was formed in January in a €50bn (£43bn) merger between France’s Peugeot and Italian-American Fiat Chrysler, in one of the clearest responses to the Tesla-driven electric revolution: the merger will allow them to share expensive investments in battery technology. It is the era-defining challenge for the automotive industry. The nerve-racking wait for an investment decision at Stellantis’s Ellesmere Port factory, home of the Vauxhall Astra family car, is an early example of the difficulties it will cause for auto companies having to reinvent their businesses – not to mention workers still manufacturing fossil fuel vehicles. Carmakers are known for being both footloose and ruthless when choosing factory locations, playing off countries against each other in search of the best deal, weighing up anything that might shave fractions of a percentage point off margins. Tavares made it clear that Ellesmere Port faced the added difficulties of Brexit and the UK’s 2030 ban on fossil fuel cars. The Brexit issue was, for the most part, resolved by the Christmas Eve agreement that secured tariff-free UK-EU trade. However, the 2030 ban has forced on to the agenda a bigger issue: whether Ellesmere Port would be upgraded from fossil fuel car production to the new electric era. A decision was expected imminently at time of publication. Tavares was stridently critical of the “brutal” pace of the UK ban – comments that laid the groundwork for a negotiating squeeze on the government for more generous financial aid. Yet for all the posturing, similar decisions will become common as Stellantis gradually leaves fossil fuels behind. Peugeot under Tavares was already on its way. It avoided EU emissions fines in 2020 by introducing plug-in hybrids and smaller electric cars like the Vauxhall Corsa-e and the Peugeot e-208, as well as cutting traditional internal combustion emissions. Its merger partner will have to learn to copy quickly. Fiat Chrysler only avoided fines by paying Tesla hundreds of millions of euros to borrow its zero-emissions credits. The Fiat 500 Electric may be promising, but otherwise it is far behind, particularly with gas-guzzling US-focused brands like Dodge and Jeep. Stellantis’s financial results, reported on Wednesday, will still observe the same division between the separate Fiat Chrysler and Peugeot arms. A detailed strategy update – outlining how the brands will share parts and designs, for instance – is not expected until April. However, the earnings expectations Stellantis reveals on Wednesday will give an idea of the constraints it will face. The outlook for the 2021 sales recovery as the pandemic eases will be key, according to analysts at UBS. They believe Stellantis will expand revenues by 12% this year, and grow profits more quickly than other traditional carmakers. Philippe Houchois, an analyst at investment bank Jefferies, argues that the winners among legacy carmakers will be those who can most adroitly manage the decline of their internal combustion engine assets. Tavares’s disciplined leadership should allow Stellantis to come out ahead of rivals, Houchois suggested in a recent note to clients. Doing so will mean a barrage of new electrified models from Stellantis as it plays catch-up – and more nervous times ahead for employees at factories that have not yet been upgraded to the electric era. | ['business/series/observer-business-agenda', 'business/automotive-industry', 'business/vauxhall', 'business/peugeot', 'business/business', 'technology/motoring', 'environment/fossil-fuels', 'environment/electric-cars', 'uk/uk', 'environment/travel-and-transport', 'technology/engineering', 'politics/industrial-policy', 'politics/eu-referendum', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'business/stellantis', 'profile/jasper-jolly', 'publication/theobserver', 'theobserver/news', 'theobserver/news/business', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-business'] | environment/fossil-fuels | EMISSIONS | 2021-02-28T00:05:38Z | true | EMISSIONS |
environment/2022/oct/26/illegal-fishing-billions-losses-developing-countries | Illegal fishing spurs billions in losses for developing countries, study says | Developing countries are losing billions of dollars due to illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing, which siphons off revenue through illicit financial flows, according to a new study by the Financial Transparency Coalition (FTC). The study reveals that the top 10 companies involved in IUU fishing are responsible for nearly a quarter of all reported cases: eight are from China – led by Nasdaq-listed Pingtan Marine Enterprise Ltd – one is from Colombia and another from Spain. The Spanish tuna giant Albacora SA emerges as Europe’s largest alleged IUU fishing company, claims the report by a coalition of 11 non-profit organisations. “Illegal fishing is a massive industry directly threatening the livelihoods of millions of people across the world, especially [those] living in poor coastal communities in developing countries already affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, the cost-of-living crisis and the impact of climate change,” said Matti Kohonen, one of the report’s authors and the executive director of the FTC. More than 90% of global fisheries stocks are being fully exploited, overexploited or depleted, according to the UN. IUU fishing is a major driver of the marine ecosystem’s destruction and accounts for one-fifth of the global fisheries’ catches, worth up to $23.5bn (£20bn) annually, the third most lucrative natural resource crime after timber and mining. Overall, global losses due to IUU fishing are estimated to be up to $50bn (£44bn), according to one study. Africa is the most affected continent, losing some $11.2bn (£9.76bn) in revenue annually from IUU fishing while concentrating 48.9% of identified industrial and semi-industrial vessels involved in the practice, the FTC report found. Of that total, 40% are in west Africa alone, which has become a global epicentre for IUU fishing. Elsewhere, Argentina loses between $2bn to $3.6bn (£1.74bn to £3.14bn) in terms of IUU fishing catch per year, Chile estimates its losses at $397m (£346m) and Indonesia’s are at $4bn (£3.49bn) annually, equivalent to the country’s annual net rubber exports, it concluded. IUU fishing represents around 20% of the global fish catch, according to a 2013 report by the Pew Trust, thus playing a key role in overfishing. The greatest declines in fish stocks are expected to happen in the coastal regions that are most food insecure and more dependent on artisanal fishing for protein. In addition to the problems caused by food insecurity, Kohonen said developing countries lose billions of dollars in illicit money flows due to illegal fishing while “vessel owners continue operating with complete impunity, using complex company structures and other schemes to hide their identity and evade prosecution”. The report warns that almost no countries require information about owners when registering vessels or requesting fishing licenses, meaning that those ultimately responsible for these activities are not punished – rather, fines are issued to the captains and crews of the vessels. It suggests that fishing vessel owners should be required to report the ultimate beneficial ownership when registering a vessel or requesting a license by regional fisheries management organisations, flag states and coastal states. Collecting such ownership data, it says, would allow the application of laws to combat money laundering, tax and financial crimes, thus creating ways to tackle the underlying fisheries-related crimes and abuses. Fishing vessels flagged to Asia – particularly China, which has, by far, the world’s largest distant-water fleet – represent 54.7% of reported IUU fishing by industrial and semi-industrial vessels, followed by Latin America (16.1%), Africa (13.5%) and Europe (12.8%). At the same time, 8.76% of identified illegal vessels use flags of convenience such as Panama and the Cayman Islands, which have lax controls and low or no effective taxes. The report urges the EU, the US and Japan – which together account for 55% of the seafood market – to ramp up their commitment to tackle IUU fishing by eliminating the drivers that enable the financial secrecy to happen in the first place, such as the use of shell companies, joint ventures and flags of convenience. Worldwide, 820 million people rely on fishing for their livelihoods, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation. In some regions like west Africa, up to a quarter of the workforce are involved in fishing. Fish consumption also accounts for a sixth of the global population’s intake of animal proteins, and more than half in countries such as Bangladesh, Cambodia, the Gambia, Ghana, Indonesia, Sierra Leone and Sri Lanka. Neither Pingtan Marine Enterprise Ltd nor Albacora SA responded to the FTC’s request for comment. Contacted by the Guardian, Albacora SA denied any involvement in IUU fishing, a spokesman for the company said: “IUU fishing is a very grave matter, which this company takes very seriously. We deny any accusations related to this.” | ['environment/series/seascape-the-state-of-our-oceans', 'environment/oceans', 'environment/environment', 'global-development/global-development', 'environment/fishing', 'business/fishing-industry', 'environment/food', 'environment/conservation', 'environment/marine-life', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/dan-collyns', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-foreign'] | environment/marine-life | BIODIVERSITY | 2022-10-26T06:00:04Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
world/2012/jan/27/experts-japan-nuclear-plant-tests | Experts cast doubt on Japan nuclear plant tests | Advisers to Japan's nuclear safety agency have said power plant stress tests do not prove that a nuclear plant is safe, as the country faces the prospect of a summer without a single nuclear reactor in operation. Last year, the Japanese government ordered the nuclear authorities to conduct tests on all Japan's reactors after the 11 March meltdown at Fukushima Daiichi raised questions about the safety of nuclear power, particularly in a country prone to earthquakes and tsunami. Earlier this week, a team of experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) began a review of the safety tests but said it was up to the Japanese government whether or not to approve the restart of idle reactors. Currently only three of Japan's 54 reactors – just over 6% of its total nuclear capacity – are in operation after the Fukushima accident forced the closure of active reactors for safety checks. The latest closure came on Friday when a reactor at a plant near the Japan Sea was shut down for inspection. Without approval for restarts, all Japan's reactors could all be shut by the end of April, boosting the use of fossil fuels and adding more than $30bn (£19bn) a year to energy costs, according to a government estimate. The government is pushing for the early restart of idled reactors, fearing a power crunch in several parts of the country during the long, humid summer. Although the trade and industry minister, Yukio Edano, said he believed Japan would be able to cope without imposing power cuts, even if all reactors were offline by the summer. Attention is now focused on a plant in the town of Ohi, western Japan, which could be the first to resume operations since 11 March. Its operator, Kansai Electric Power, has said two of the facility's reactors are able to withstand quakes and tsunami much stronger than those predicted for the area – a view reportedly endorsed by the country's nuclear and industrial safety agency. But Masashi Goto, a former nuclear power plant designer, said the stress tests at Ohi and elsewhere were next to useless. "It is a misunderstanding to believe these tests prove that a nuclear plant is safe," he said. "The reality is that the inspectors only look at the reactors' design and then factor in possible problems, such as earthquakes and tsunami of a certain size. "They do not take into account the various malfunctions that can result in a disaster, including human error and equipment failure." Hiromitsu Ino, an emeritus professor at Tokyo University and a fellow member of the nuclear safety agency advisory panel, said the tests were flawed because they had been introduced before the full facts of the Fukushima disaster were known. "The stress tests are being presented as a comprehensive survey of the safety of Japan's nuclear power plants, but the reality is very different," Ino said. "They only look at potential problems in isolation, and the process of testing is exactly the same as it was before the March earthquake." No one had presented definitive evidence that the fuel meltdowns in three of Fukushima Daiichi's six reactors were caused by the magnitude nine earthquake that struck north-east Japan or the 14-metre tsunami that followed it. Goto and Ino said it would be impossible to appraise the causes and consequences of the Fukushima disaster unless the plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power, released all the relevant data that could then be used to perform a simulation. Ino said he had little confidence in the IAEA team, which is due to present its latest report at the end of the month. "I don't view their evaluation as something that is trustworthy or carries any weight," he said. "The last time the IAEA inspectors came to Japan, they simply inspected sites and documents and left saying everything was fine. They submitted a flimsy report, and I fear the same will be the case this time." Japan has already abandoned plans to generate more than half its electricity supply through nuclear energy by 2030, but the prime minister, Yoshihiko Noda, has said it needs to retain some nuclear plants until alternative sources of energy are developed. | ['environment/nuclearpower', 'world/japan', 'world/japan-earthquake-and-tsunami', 'world/asia-pacific', 'world/world', 'environment/fukushima', 'environment/environment', 'tone/news', 'type/article', 'profile/justinmccurry', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/international'] | environment/nuclearpower | ENERGY | 2012-01-27T12:36:45Z | true | ENERGY |
news/2011/aug/19/weatherwatch-java-tropical-weather | Weatherwatch: a naturalist's wife on the island of Java in the 1880s | To enjoy anything of the tropical day you must be up before the sun, and get out when its light is just coming over the horizon. "The freshness of this hour, when a soft wind blows, bearing sweetest scents, almost compensates for the great heat, which comes too soon, and which the dusk does not relieve, for the earth still sends off heated air that makes the wind warm," writes Anna Forbes in Unbeaten Tracks in Islands of the Far East (1888). Her subtitle says it all: Experiences of a naturalists' wife in the 1880s. She is in a resort in Dutch colony of Batavia, on the island of Java, in a botanical garden. "On the right, the garden descends through groves and arbours, whose luxuriance of growth and richness of leaf are new to my eye, to its boundary stream, now (for it is the rainy season) rushing and foaming over the great boulders of rock which lie in its bed. Standing on the terrace by its bank, under a canopy of tall palms that form a shade from the early sun, and looking over the torrent to stretches of fresh green fields, we taste the sweetness of a tropical morning." A slight breeze, she says, generally rises at about 10am "and in the deep shade of these avenues one can walk or drive at noon in comfort. "We never miss a daily visit to a seat under an umbrageous India-rubber tree, in front of which a fountain plays into a circular pond, dotted with blue and white flowers of water-lilies and Victoria regias." | ['news/series/weatherwatch', 'uk/weather', 'uk/uk', 'tone/features', 'books/books', 'type/article', 'profile/timradford', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2'] | news/series/weatherwatch | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2011-08-19T22:05:04Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
business/2010/jun/01/bp-response-oil-spill-tony-hayward | BP's clumsy response to oil spill threatens to make a bad situation worse | The public relations strategy for dealing with a disaster such as the Gulf of Mexico spill, now officially the worst in US history, was always going to be about damage limitation. With each failure to stem the flow, BP's credibility has taken another blow. But at times, BP's response has made the situation worse. In an interview with the BBC a month ago, chief executive Tony Hayward attempted to shift the blame for the accident to the US owner of the sunken rig, Transocean. "This was not our accident … This was not our drilling rig ... This was Transocean's rig. Their systems. Their people. Their equipment." BP press officers briefing journalists that week repeated the line that "this was not our accident". Never mind that investigations into what caused the accident had barely started, with BP, Transocean and the company in charge of cementing the well, Halliburton, all pointing the finger at each other. Weeks later, after BP gave details of its own preliminary findings into the cause of the accident, a more contrite Hayward said: "A number of companies are involved, including BP, and it is simply too early – and not up to us – to say who is at fault." But the damage had been done, as BP appeared to be trying to duck responsibility. Duncan John, a partner at StrategicFit, a strategy consultancy for the energy industry, praised BP for spelling out how likely each of their attempts to halt the spill were to work. But warned: "Communication over the extent of their responsibility and the consequences may run the risk of aggravating an already sceptical public if not carefully handled." Last month, Hayward also made some ill-advised comments in an interview with the Guardian which received widespread coverage around the world. Asked about the amount of oil and dispersant flowing into the gulf, he responded: "The Gulf of Mexico is a very big ocean. The amount of volume of oil and dispersant we are putting into it is tiny in relation to the total water volume." While technically correct, the comments made the company appear aloof and unconcerned about the environmental damage being done. In the same interview, he also said that if all other attempts failed, he could "guarantee" that the flow of oil would stop in three months with the completion of a relief well. At that stage, oil had not reached land in large quantities. But pressed about the damage already done to the marine environment, he said: "No, that's the point you seem to be missing ... The containment exercise on the surface is proving to be extraordinarily effective." Independent scientists have since found vast underwater plumes of oil, including one 120 metres (400ft) deep about 50 miles from the destroyed rig. Hayward, who has a PhD in geology, said on Monday that BP had no evidence of such an underwater slick, arguing that because oil is lighter than water it will rise to the surface. For BP, seeing is believing, it seems. Last month, it flew a group of journalists, including the Guardian, in a helicopter over the Gulf of Mexico. The plan had been to fly over the site of the accident itself to see the clean-up efforts, but the pilot had to turn back half-way because there wasn't time. BP officials on board insisted there was no oil to see anyway, as all the oil was being dispersed by hundreds of thousands of gallons of chemicals, which regulators have since restricted because they could be making the pollution worse. The official estimated flow rate of 5,000 barrels per day, a figure repeated by BP, increased last week to between 12,000 and 19,000 barrels. The revision was partly based on new video footage of the leak from the seabed which BP only released following pressure from scientists and the US Congress. Civil penalties are charged on a per barrel basis – up to $4,300 each – so BP's liabilities are in direct proportion to the size of the leak. BP has said the effort to protect the shoreline of Louisiana is run jointly by itself, the US Coast Guard, and the much-maligned US offshore regulator, the Minerals Management Service (MMS). When it comes to the hugely complex attempts to stop the flow of oil 5,000 feet below the surface, BP is running the show. With anger in the US mounting over BP's failure to stem the leak, President Obama has been under pressure to take control of the operation. But he knows only the industry – not governments – has the technical knowledge required. This means Obama has little choice but to rely on BP, the company he has been heavily critical of, to try and fix the mess it may have had a hand in creating. Matthew Lockwood, from the centre-left thinktank, the Institute for Public Policy Research, says the spill underlines the dilemmas faced by governments in the era of big energy companies. The enthusiasm and can-do attitude of the 2,500 BP staff seconded from all around the globe to handle the disaster are not under question but this is not their job and the company is not an environmental organisation, despite attempts to rebrand it as "Beyond Petroleum". Hayward on Sunday alluded to the role BP has unwillingly adopted: "I'm sorry. We're sorry for the massive disruption it's caused their lives. There's no one who wants this over more than I do. I'd like my life back." | ['business/bp', 'environment/bp-oil-spill', 'business/oil', 'environment/oil-spills', 'business/oilandgascompanies', 'us-news/us-news', 'business/business', 'environment/oil', 'environment/environment', 'world/world', 'tone/analysis', 'business/tony-hayward', 'type/article', 'profile/timwebb', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/international'] | environment/oil | ENERGY | 2010-06-01T21:58:13Z | true | ENERGY |
business/2009/may/27/shell-nigeria-pollution-court-cases | Chequered history: Shell in Nigeria | The case is not the first against Shell in Nigeria. Hundreds of minor cases are brought each year, mostly by individuals for damage to crops or pollution. Most are settled out of court with a few hundred dollars. The company regards them as a small community tax. But others are more serious. In 2006, after an order by Nigeria's parliament, a court ordered Shell to pay $1.5bn (£95m) to the Ijaw people for damage done to the environment years before. Shell has appealed. Also, in 2005, the company was ordered to stop gas flaring but refused, asking for more time. Shell is thought to be most vulnerable to cases brought to foreign courts. This month, four fishermen and farmers from the Niger delta are representing their villages in a Dutch court. They say that their livelihoods have been affected by pollution and accuse Shell of failing to adhere to international standards on "good oilfield practice". | ['business/royaldutchshell', 'environment/oil-spills', 'environment/oil', 'business/oil', 'world/nigeria', 'business/business', 'environment/environment', 'world/world', 'tone/news', 'world/africa', 'type/article', 'profile/johnvidal', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/international'] | environment/oil | ENERGY | 2009-05-26T23:05:14Z | true | ENERGY |
money/2023/feb/04/new-london-ulez-scrappage-scheme-worth-up-to-3000-to-low-income-motorists | New London Ulez scrappage scheme worth up to £3,000 to low-income motorists | Low-income Londoners are being offered a package worth as much as £3,000 to scrap their old polluting cars in readiness for this summer’s expansion of the ultra-low emission zone (Ulez) to cover most of the city’s roads. Transport for London (TfL) estimates that 30,000 vehicle owners will access payouts from the scrappage scheme. However, there is only £110m up for grabs and it will be doled out on a first-come, first-served basis, with car drivers having to vie with van, motorbike and minibus owners for the money. It is just the latest scrappage scheme to resume in the UK, joining others in Birmingham, Bristol and Scotland, which all have their own low emissions zones. Since 2019, drivers of most petrol cars first registered before 2006 (those with Euro 3 engines and below) and most diesel cars bought up to 2015 (not Euro 6) have been deemed too polluting to drive in London’s Ulez, which was expanded to include all roads within the north and south circulars in October 2021. Noncompliant vehicles can still drive in it but must pay a £12.50 daily charge. With the zone to be expanded again on 29 August, TfL has relaunched its scrappage scheme, in part to counter claims that the Ulez adversely affects the poorest households. It is thought that about 15% of vehicles in the newly enlarged area will not comply. To be eligible for the scrappage payments, drivers have to live in one of the capital’s 32 boroughs, have a disability, or be in receipt of one of a long list of benefits. These include universal credit, carer’s allowance, child tax credit, income support and jobseeker’s allowance. The applicant must have owned the car they want to scrap on 30 January 2022. This is to stop people going out and buying old bangers and then applying. The car in question also has to be insured. Applicants can’t have received payment under the previous TfL scrappage scheme when 15,000 older vehicles were taken off the road. Once the owner has been accepted, produced all the evidence, and a certificate from the scrapyard to show that the vehicle was destroyed, they will receive a £2,000 cash payment for a car, or £1,000 for a motorcycle. Interestingly, users can also opt for a part cash payment and one or two adult annual bus and tram passes instead. Car scrappers can receive £1,600 in cash and one annual bus pass, or £1,200 cash and two passes, which TfL says is worth £3,000. London-based sole traders, registered charities and small businesses of up to 10 employees may also apply for the van and minibus scrappage scheme, which includes grant payments of between £5,000 and £9,500. Owners of older, specially converted, wheelchair-accessible cars or vans have the option of scrapping it and taking £5,000 cash, or the same amount towards retrofitting a new engine or an electric conversion that will make the vehicle compliant. The retrofit payment only applies to vans, not converted cars. It is not only in the capital that drivers are being paid to scrap their old cars. In Birmingham, drivers can get £2,000 in public transport travel credits, or £2,000 towards the purchase of a compliant car through Motorpoint. In that case you need to live outside the low emissions zone and earn less than £30,000 a year. There is a similar scheme in Bristol, while in Scotland there is up to £3,000 in help, provided you live within a 20km radius of such a zone and are in receipt of benefits. Bath’s scheme is not currently open. | ['money/motoring', 'money/money', 'uk/london', 'uk/tfl', 'uk/transport', 'uk/uk', 'environment/carbon-emissions', 'environment/environment', 'politics/transport', 'environment/travel-and-transport', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'environment/low-emission-zones', 'profile/milesbrignall', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-money'] | environment/carbon-emissions | EMISSIONS | 2023-02-04T07:00:24Z | true | EMISSIONS |
global-development/2015/jul/23/millennium-development-goal-seven-sustainability-mdg7-sanitation-deforestation-drinking-water-explainer | What is the millennium development goal on sustainability all about? | Sam Jones | What is MDG7? MDG7 is a broad goal with a mix of ill-defined aims and more precise ones. Its four targets focus on sustainable development, environmental protection, access to safe drinking water and sanitation, and improving the lives of millions of people living in slums. The first target (7a) calls for the principles of sustainable development to be integrated into “country policies and programmes”, and for the reversal of the loss of environmental resources. The second (7b) aims for a significant reduction in the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010. The third (7c) aims to halve, by 2015, the proportion of the population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation. The final target (7d) seeks the achievement, by 2020, of a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers. Will the goal be met? Only in part – and a glance through the progress of recent years reveals a distinctly mixed picture. 7a: Although the 26 years since the adoption of the Montreal protocol on substances that deplete the ozone layer have produced a reduction of more than 98% in the consumption of ozone-depleting substances, global emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) reached 32.2bn metric tonnes in 2011 – a 48.9% rise above the 1990 level. The rapid growth in CO2 emissions, which increased by 35% between 2000 and 2011 compared with 1990-2000, is mostly down to fast emissions growth in developing regions. While about 13m hectares of forest were lost worldwide each year between 2000 and 2010, the planting of forests on land where there were none before (afforestation) – coupled with the natural expansion of forests – has reduced net loss from an average of 8.3m hectares annually in the 1990s to an average of 5.2m annually between 2000 and 2010. The UN attributes the slowdown in deforestation to measures taken by countries such as Brazil, Chile, China, Costa Rica, Rwanda and Vietnam. 7b: According to the UN, protected ecosystems covered at least 14% of land and coastal marine areas worldwide by 2012. Despite such conservation efforts, however, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s Red List of threatened species reveals that, overall, species are declining in both population and distribution. 7c: The good news: the world met the target of halving the proportion of people without access to improved sources of water in 2010 – five years ahead of schedule. But while 2.6 billion people gained access to better water sources between 1990 and 2015, 663 million are still without improved drinking water. Efforts on sanitation have fared far less well: 2.1 billion people have gained access to improved sanitation since 1990, meaning the target has been missed by nearly 700 million people. Approximately 2.4 billion people in developing countries – a third of humanity – still lack access to improved sanitation facilities, while 946 million people still defecate in the open. In August 2014, the UN deputy secretary general, Jan Eliasson, described sanitation as “the most lagging” of all the MDG targets and said the lack of progress on building toilets and ending open defecation was hindering development and robbing people of their dignity. The UN estimates that more people have access to mobile phones than toilets. 7d: The target was met and exceeded, with more than 200 million people in slums gaining access to either improved water, sanitation, durable housing or less crowded conditions between 2000 and 2014. Over the same period, the proportion of urban residents in developing countries living in slums dropped from 39.4% to 29.7%. However, increasing urbanisation has produced a rise in the overall number of slum dwellers from 689 million in 1990 to 792 million in 2000 and 880 million today. How does MDG7 fit into the sustainable development goals? The concerns and aspirations of MDG7 are echoed in five separate sustainable development goals (SDGs), comprising a total of 46 targets. SDG12 aims to ensure “sustainable consumption and production patterns”, while SDG13 seeks “urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts”. SDG14 calls for the conservation and careful stewardship of oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development. SDG15, meanwhile, aims to “protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss”. Water and sanitation figure prominently in SDG6, which aims to “ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all”. As well as seeking universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water by 2030, the goal aims at access to adequate and equitable sanitation and hygiene for all by the same date, with special attention given to the needs of women and girls – and to ending open defecation. | ['global-development/series/millennium-development-goals-the-final-countdown', 'global-development/millennium-development-goals', 'global-development/global-development', 'global-development/sustainable-development-goals', 'global-development/environmental-sustainability', 'environment/environment', 'environment/sustainable-development', 'type/article', 'tone/analysis', 'profile/samjones'] | environment/sustainable-development | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2015-07-23T06:30:00Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
lifeandstyle/2023/jul/31/the-pet-ill-never-forget-thumper-was-a-caged-rabbit-so-how-did-she-get-pregnant | The pet I’ll never forget: Thumper was a caged rabbit. So how did she get pregnant? | When my beloved guinea pig Nutty died, I found myself yearning for something to fill the furry-animal-shaped hole in my life. Not wanting to betray his memory with another guinea pig, I went for rabbits. But when I set my sights on Thumper, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. She was a perfectly white bunny, with large floppy ears that dragged on the ground as she hopped and covered her face as she slept. She had a cute round bottom and twitched her nose when she could smell food. Our home in rural Warwickshire was the perfect place for her. She and Chester, the other rabbit I got at the same time, spent their days chasing each other around a pen in the garden and slept in a two-storey hutch filled with hay. She could be boisterous and greedy – my dad called her “the fat one”. And she always seemed to have a horde of wild rabbits flitting around near her on the other side of the chicken wire. I hadn’t planned for her to breed. Chester was also female. But one afternoon in April 2017 I got home from school to find nine newborn kittens, lying in the hay, hairless and looking more like tiny rats than miniature Thumpers. I quickly discovered that Thumper would let me nowhere near them unless I brought food. What I couldn’t understand was how she had got pregnant. Immaculate conception was the first thing that came to mind – it was Easter, after all. Then a quick Google search revealed that rabbits can do what they are famous for even through chicken wire. The vet told me Thumper had got frisky with a wild rabbit, she had been pregnant for only a month and, because this was her first litter, the kittens weren’t likely to survive for long. But Thumper had no intention of giving up, and she did all she could to keep them fed and warm. To our surprise and delight, we were eventually left with three healthy bunnies, who we named Snap, Crackle and Pop. We kept all of them, and this happy little family remained in our garden eating all our spare grass and vegetables. They dug what can only be described as a rabbit bunker, and played in it as their own personal hideout. But Thumper, Chester, Snap, Crackle and Pop all sadly died the next summer, killed by myxomatosis, a disease that is so deadly to rabbits it has been used to control their numbers (a practice that was criminalised in 1954). I sometimes wonder if it reached them via the same wild rabbits that had made Thumper a mother. I have had pets since, but no other animal has taught me as much about dealing with surprises. | ['lifeandstyle/series/the-pet-i-ll-never-forget', 'lifeandstyle/lifeandstyle', 'lifeandstyle/pets', 'environment/wildlife', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/larissa-hurt', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/g2', 'theguardian/g2/features', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-g2-features', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-g2-production'] | environment/wildlife | BIODIVERSITY | 2023-07-31T10:00:34Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2021/dec/01/uk-green-homes-scheme-was-slam-dunk-fail-says-public-accounts-committee | England green homes scheme was ‘slam dunk fail’, says public accounts committee | The government’s green homes grant scheme underperformed badly and risks damaging future efforts to deliver net zero, the public accounts committee (PAC) said. Hailed by the prime minister, Boris Johnson, as a key plank in his green industrial revolution, the grants only upgraded about 47,500 homes out of the 600,000 originally planned. They also delivered a small fraction of the expected jobs. The grants were intended to support the public in England to make their homes more energy efficient and move away from fossil fuel heating by installing heat pumps and solar energy. But the PAC said the scheme unveiled in 2020 by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), was poorly designed and had a troubled implementation. The Guardian previously revealed the grants were administered by ICF, an American corporation based in Fairfax, Virginia. Renewable energy businesses said the administration of the grants was chaotic, inefficient, confused and created long delays for the public and those installing the systems. MPs on the public accounts committee said more than £1,000 per home upgraded was spent on administration; a total of £50m or 16% of the total spend of £314m. This was a fraction of the £1.5bn budget promised to upgrade 600,000 homes. The scheme began operation in September 2020 and was scrapped abruptly in March this year after just six months operating. Cutting carbon emissions from homes – which emit 20% of the UK’s CO2 – is seen as crucial if the country is to reach net zero by 2050. Dame Meg Hillier, chair of the public accounts committee, said: “It cost the taxpayer £50m just to administer the pointlessly rushed through Green Homes Grant scheme, which delivered a small fraction of its objectives, either in environmental benefits or the promised new jobs. “We heard it can take 48 months – four years – to train the specialists required to implement key parts of a scheme that was dreamed up to be rolled out in 12 weeks. It was never going to work at this time, in this way, and that should have been blindingly obvious to the department. That it was not is a serious worry, I am afraid there is no escaping the conclusion that this scheme was a slam dunk fail.” The MPs said they were not convinced that BEIS had fully acknowledged the scale of its failures with this scheme. Hillier said it was vital to have a massive step-change in the way homes and public buildings are heated. “But the way this was devised and run was just a terrible waste of money and opportunity at a time when we can least afford it.” The report said the failure of the scheme had damaged confidence in government efforts to improve energy efficiency in private domestic homes. The way government was tackling the issue of domestic heating was “fragmented, stop-go activity” which had hindered stable long-term progress towards its energy efficiency ambitions. The government awarded the administration of the grants to ICF, who had promised to deliver it in six weeks – other companies said fully implementing such a system would take at least 15 weeks – but ICF was not challenged by the department to explain how it could deliver, the report found. In the end, the department launched the complex scheme without an IT platform that had been fully developed and tested to run it. ICF struggled to implement the digital voucher application system, leading to greater amounts of manual processing being needed for applications, contributing to the delays in processing vouchers. The report found the scheme promised to create jobs but its design and duration limited its impact on employment and its abrupt closure may have led to redundancies. • The headline of this article was amended on 1 December 2021. The UK government’s green homes scheme applied to England only, not all of the UK. | ['environment/green-economy', 'environment/energy', 'environment/energyefficiency', 'money/energy', 'environment/greenbuilding', 'environment/green-jobs', 'uk/uk', 'politics/politics', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/sandralaville', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/energy | ENERGY | 2021-12-01T06:00:54Z | true | ENERGY |
uk/1999/jan/06/5 | Weatherwatch | We continue our series of articles exploring the most eventful weather of the 20th century, working up to what, in my opinion, was the number one event, which we will come to at the end of the year. We are at about number 50 now in this (highly personal) assessment, and focus today on a major storm at the beginning of 1976 - one of this country's most violent gales of the century. Very mild air accompanied it, and in the evening the temperature rose to 14C in the southwest; earlier in the day, it had been as low as -12C in northeast Scotland. There was a gust of 104 mph at Wittering, near Peterborough, and many parts of East Anglia, the north Midlands, north Wales and northern England had gusts of over 90 mph during the evening. Up to A100 million worth of damage was reported, and many people lost their lives, as a result of being hit by flying debris or in road accidents. A caravan site was destroyed near Doncaster, making 63 people homeless. Thousands of houses suffered damage to their roofs, and crops in hundreds of greenhouses were ruined by shattered glass. There were fears of flooding down the east coast, although these mostly proved unfound-ed; waves did, however, swamp the sea defences in Lincolnshire, flooding streets at Sutton-on-Sea and Mablethorpe to a depth of four feet. Many ships were in difficulties around the coast. The depression responsible for the storm later caused considerable damage and loss of life throughout northern Europe. | ['uk/uk', 'news/series/weatherwatch', 'type/article'] | news/series/weatherwatch | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 1999-01-06T03:37:00Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2022/jul/27/country-diary-a-jungle-of-seaweed-a-busy-spider-crab-a-bobbing-seal | Country diary: A jungle of seaweed, a busy spider crab, a bobbing seal | With golfers on the cliff above giving me slightly odd looks, I struggle into my wetsuit and negotiate my way across a few slimy yards of seaweed-smothered rock. I happened upon this spot after wandering over from the busy Ty Coch beachside pub. A rocky cove called Borth Wen, it was all but deserted, with mini-islands of igneous rock poking out of the water, creating a naturally sheltered bay – a promising place for a bit of aquatic exploration. I push myself out into the cool Atlantic water and look down through my goggles. Being a landlubber, my occasional forays into marine ecology always feel exhilaratingly exotic. I find myself swimming above a sun-dappled seafloor carpeted in aquatic life, mostly comprising marine algae in all its strange, fascinating forms. Huge “tentacles” of Himanthalia elongata, sometimes called “sea spaghetti”, brush against my skin and softly tangle around my feet in a way that feels disconcertingly alive. Monstrous heads of oarweed (Laminaria digitata) cling to the rocks, their dark brown fronds waving in the current like serpents. As the water deepens, the life grows in scale. I appear to have entered a forest of kelp: an order of large seaweed algae that can form dense, wildlife-rich underwater “jungles”. A small school of silvery fish scurries among the towering algae, a large spiny spider crab works its way across a rock and a sea trout lurks in the green depths. I look up from this weird, wild world for a moment. On the coast above, people stroll past on the way to the pub and the golfers are pushing their trolleys around on manicured grass. Then I notice what looks like a small rock protruding from the water nearby. The rock bobs up and down, which seems strange, then turns its whiskered head towards me. I find myself looking into the fellow mammalian eyes of a grey seal. The animal stays there for a good few minutes, seemingly unfazed by the awkward interloper in its realm, before resuming its business in the underwater world. • Country Diary is on Twitter at @gdncountrydiary | ['environment/series/country-diary', 'environment/marine-life', 'uk/ruralaffairs', 'environment/environment', 'uk/wales', 'uk/uk', 'lifeandstyle/pubs', 'environment/wildlife', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/carey-davies', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/journal', 'theguardian/journal/letters', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-letters-and-leader-writers'] | environment/wildlife | BIODIVERSITY | 2022-07-27T04:30:08Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
politics/2017/jul/10/brexit-pm-making-plans-to-replicate-membership-of-atomic-energy-group-euratom | Ministers act to head off revolt over membership of European nuclear regulator | The government is drawing up plans to replicate the benefits of remaining a member of the Euratom treaty, which governs the movement of nuclear materials across Europe, in the face of a growing rebellion of Conservative MPs. The Guardian understands that one option being considered is an “associate membership”, similar to that held by Switzerland, or paying money to an international agency to set up an independent arrangement. Nine Tory MPs signalled that they could line up with Labour and the Liberal Democrats on the issue, making it difficult for May to secure a parliamentary majority. Ed Vaizey, a former Tory minister, joined forces with Labour MP Rachel Reeves over the weekend to warn that the treaty was vital to protect the nuclear power industry in the UK. It comes after a warning that cancer patients could be at risk if the government fails to stay part of the group, the European atomic energy community. Dr Nicola Strickland, president of the Royal College of Radiologists, told the Evening Standard she feared the risk of “Brexatom” could threaten the supply of radioactive isotopes, used in scans and treatment. The newspaper, edited by the former chancellor George Osborne, carried a story on its front page with the headline: “Cancer patients in Brexit scare.” The pressure has been mounting since May included leaving Euratom in her article 50 letter to the European council president, Donald Tusk. Critics believe May has created the problem by insisting that the UK cannot remain under the jurisdiction of the European court of justice. However, a senior Whitehall source told the Guardian that the government had included that line because of a belief that the UK had no choice. They said that “both the UK government and the European commission thought it was a legal necessity” to leave Euratom as part of Brexit. However, they said significant work was under way to ensure that Britain had the “same outcomes” as currently enjoyed within the grouping, and admitted that country membership was being considered. “We will not be marking our own homework when it comes to nuclear safety,” he added. A source from the European commission confirmed that, legally speaking, the UK would have to leave Euratom as part of Brexit. All the members of Euratom are inside the EU, but Switzerland is an equal partner through associate membership. Reeves, who is running to become chair of the business select committee in parliament, said: “MPs from across the political spectrum are clearly very worried about the prospect of leaving Euratom and ideology getting ahead of sensible politics. “It is time for the government to rethink this. Nobody voted to leave the EU to come out of Euratom, and no one would think the government was going soft on Brexit if they rowed back on this.” Dame Sue Ion, honorary president of the Nuclear Skills Academy and former chair of the Nuclear Innovation Research Advisory Board, said: “Associate membership is better than nothing, but it all depends on exactly what that means. It’s normally associated with access to Euratom research, not the wider cover provided by the treaty for everything else [such as transport of nuclear materials].” She added: “The best option is clearly to stay in, which is entirely possible.” Unions urged ministers to listen to their MPs and change their mind on quitting Euratom. Mike Clancy, general secretary of Prospect, said: “It is now clear that a hasty retreat from Euratom would be damaging to the UK. The risks to the NHS, British nuclear sector and high-skilled jobs in the industry are too great for the government to get this wrong.” At a recent industry conference, Lord Hutton, chair of the Nuclear Industry Association, said he still held out hope that the government could reconsider leaving Euratom entirely. If the UK was to leave without new arrangements or a transitional arrangement in place, he warned: “There is real concern that the economic growth potential of the UK’s nuclear programme might be damaged. We mustn’t let that happen.” | ['politics/eu-referendum', 'environment/nuclearpower', 'world/eu', 'politics/conservatives', 'world/europe-news', 'politics/foreignpolicy', 'politics/politics', 'uk/uk', 'world/world', 'politics/article-50', 'environment/energy', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/anushkaasthana', 'profile/heatherstewart', 'profile/adam-vaughan', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-home-news'] | environment/nuclearpower | ENERGY | 2017-07-10T14:56:32Z | true | ENERGY |
tv-and-radio/2023/jun/01/the-days-review-this-nuclear-disaster-drama-is-no-chernobyl | The Days review – this nuclear disaster drama is no Chernobyl | It feels borderline immoral to criticise The Days, a serenely measured and thorough dramatisation of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster and its aftermath. The resourcefulness and courage of the men on duty at the power station at the hideous moment when calamity struck, who stayed for a week afterwards working to avoid a much worse catastrophe, deserves our deep respect. But as a drama, The Days is too respectful: its desire not to leave anything out might result in tired viewers abandoning their posts. One of the most powerful earthquakes in recorded history took place under the sea off Japan’s east coast on 11 March 2011, rupturing the mains electricity supply to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. When a subsequent tsunami flooded the station – situated only 10 metres above sea level – it nullified the site’s emergency diesel generators. Now completely without power, the plant’s reactors could no longer be cooled – only an improvised damage limitation exercise would avoid a total meltdown. Fukushima was the worst nuclear accident since Chornobyl, and The Days is the first true-life dramatisation of a nuclear accident since Chernobyl, the deservedly acclaimed miniseries aired by Sky/HBO in 2019. That show was a stunning re-creation of specific events with a thick layer of more universal drama on top, as it explored not just the culture of lying and cover-ups that riddled the failing Soviet Union, but the tendency of hierarchical institutions everywhere to stifle the morals and independent thinking of individuals working within them. The Days, unfortunately, only really has the “stunning re-creation of specific events” part. Yes, there are scenes where senior managers and politicians give bad instructions because they are afraid of political blowback, concerned with their public image or too wedded to normal protocol, but they are few in number and don’t offer any surprising insights. Instead, many lengthy sequences recall the moments in Chornobyl when men volunteered to complete essential tasks, knowing that doing so would expose them to potentially fatal levels of radiation. Once the tsunami has arrived – the awesome destructive power of the sea crashing incongruously through dry-land structures is superbly rendered, and prompts a haunting miniature disaster movie featuring men stuck in a rapidly filling basement – the plant manager, Yoshida (Koji Yakusho), has to perform a terrible plate-spinning feat. He has several reactors that require ventilation, the pumping in of water, or both. As quickly as he and his team conjure a clever scheme to avert an explosion here, the readings are hitting the red zone there. Yakusho is excellent as a man who morphs slowly from a happily pottering pen-pusher, triple-checking everything with calm dedication, to a stubbly firebrand kicking over waste bins and disregarding direct orders because he can see what needs to be done, hasn’t slept for 80 hours and no longer has time for anyone’s bullshit. He is trapped in a steadily deteriorating nightmare, but the nature of it – more or less the same thing goes wrong, over and over and over, a little bit worse each time – kills The Days as a drama. Episode two centres on valves that need opening by hand, deep in the innards of a pitch-dark, increasingly irradiated building littered with debris and mud. “Please, select the staff members who will go inside,” says Yoshida to the control room supervisor, both of them tacitly aware that what he means is, decide which of your men might die. The scene where this choice is made is starkly moving, but that impact lessens as we see variations on the same scenario: something very similar takes place in episode seven, and in virtually every instalment in between. After a while it’s hard to keep track of which characters are stoically, heroically donning hazmat suits and stepping into the darkness – some of them ought to have been ruthlessly edited out. The Days also becomes a drama by numbers: much turns on this gauge not going above 600 kilopascals, that device requiring 125 volts, these dosimeters reading 85 and 97 millisieverts when a minute ago they were below 20 and so on, rather than a well-drawn human making the decision that defines them. The script is too busy ensuring it dutifully notes all the relevant facts to create any memorable characters outside Yoshida himself – evidently the show is meant as a tribute to the man, who died of cancer two years after the disaster, and on that level it admirably succeeds. It also has the feel of paying homage to the prime minister, Naoto Kan (Fumiyo Kohinata), whom we see in the grip of table-slapping frustration at waffly answers from nervous underlings. It’s an emotion that could be directed at The Days itself: when something is this important, ditch the fine details and get to the point. The Days is on Netflix. | ['tv-and-radio/series/tv-review', 'tv-and-radio/tv-and-radio', 'culture/television', 'culture/culture', 'campaign/email/whats-on', 'tv-and-radio/drama', 'environment/nuclearpower', 'environment/fukushima', 'tv-and-radio/chernobyl', 'type/article', 'tone/reviews', 'profile/jack-seale', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-culture', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-g2-production'] | environment/nuclearpower | ENERGY | 2023-06-01T08:00:27Z | true | ENERGY |
news/2016/dec/18/why-britains-coast-doomed-floods-weatherwatch | Why Britain's coast is doomed | Storms during the winter of 2013-14 generated the maximum recorded sea level at 20 of the 40 tide gauge sites around the UK, as well as the largest number of extreme sea level events in any season in the last 100 years. This is one of the findings of scientists from Southampton University who have been studying coastal flooding around Britain to try to understand the increasing threat from storm surges in various parts of the coast. There are several factors involved in who will get flooded and when. The track of the depressions, the direction of the wind and the state of the tide dictate which places are vulnerable at any one time. To help people predict when coastal communities might be at risk the scientists have developed a historical record of coastal flooding called Surgewatch, which gives a report of each event since 1915 and its severity. Those with memories of recent storms or extra information are asked to contribute. But a disturbing finding is that none of these serious flood events occurred during severe storms but those classed as moderate. This was because none of the severe storms coincided with a high spring tide so were not enough on their own to overtop the sea defences. In other words, so far the UK has been lucky. The conclusion must be that with sea levels rising at around 3mm a year and storms getting more frequent and violent, it is only a matter of time before a major storm and a spring tide coincide, and bring widespread destruction to somewhere along Britain’s coastline. | ['news/series/weatherwatch', 'environment/flooding', 'environment/coastlines', 'environment/winter', 'science/meteorology', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/sea-level', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/paulbrown', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-weather'] | news/series/weatherwatch | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2016-12-18T21:30:02Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/green-living-blog/2009/oct/13/waste-recycling | Fed up with Freecycle? Try these top 10 alternatives | Freecycle is not the only fruit when it comes to reuse and recycling, as the recent split between its UK and US arms has shown. Here are ten alternatives: MySkip: a celeb-backed swapping site with photos Freegle: a new breakaway set of groups from ex-Freecycle UK moderators vSkips: a healthy reuse site with a simple design and over 25,000 "virtual skips" Whatsmineisyours.com: the original clothes-swapping, or "swishing", site Big Wardrobe: another clothes-swapping site that recently launched a national swapping "road show" RecycleNow: an official government site that has a postcode service to locate your nearest recycling centre Gumtree: popular for giveaways and classified sales. Fairly London-centric but very busy Don't Dump That: forum-based reuse site along the lines of Freecycle Seedy People: seed-swapping site for gardeners and allotment owners LetsAllShare: Freecycle-style site with feedback ratings for users Those are some of the best known alternatives. Have you used any of the sites above? Let me know which ones I've missed in the comments below. | ['environment/green-living-blog', 'environment/waste', 'environment/recycling', 'environment/ethical-living', 'environment/environment', 'tone/blog', 'type/article', 'profile/adam-vaughan'] | environment/waste | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2009-10-13T14:07:00Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
world/2006/aug/29/hurricanekatrina.usa | Bush takes 'full responsibility' for Katrina response | George Bush today said he took "full responsibility" for the US government's poor response to Hurricane Katrina, which hit the Gulf Coast a year ago today. The storm killed 1,900 people, more than 1,500 in New Orleans, where Mr Bush made his comments on the anniversary of the worst natural disaster in US history. The delayed rescue efforts at the time shocked America. Mr Bush admitted today that the "hurricane brought terrible scenes that we thought we would never see in America". He also conceded that the government "fell short" at "all levels". "I take full responsibility for the federal government's response." But he insisted that lessons had been learned and he promised more aid to New Orleans and the wider area. "The debris is getting clear," he said. "I simply could not imagine an America without the crescent city." Mr Bush also paid tribute to the rescue efforts that were made. "People looked up to the skies for deliverance, and then they saw the choppers come." Earlier today, Mr Bush met the New Orleans mayor, Ray Nagin, and attended a service at St Louis cathedral in the French Quarter. In the aftermath of the disaster, the president stood by the cathedral and admitted that his administration had failed to respond adequately. The White House hopes regeneration of the Gulf Coast will erase the damage done to Mr Bush by the sluggish official reaction to the storm. Earlier this month, an AP-Ipsos poll revealed that 67% of Americans disapproved of his handling of the disaster. Officials said the purpose of Mr Bush's trip was not to dwell on the disaster but to highlight rebuilding efforts, thank volunteers and celebrate community spirit. However, frustration at the state, local and federal response in New Orleans - which still has no master rebuilding plan - remains intense. Only 50% of the city has electricity, half of its hospitals remain closed and violent crime has risen. Less than half the population has returned since the storm, with tens of thousands of families living in trailers and mobile homes, and insurance settlements mired in red tape. Last year, Mr Bush promised to help fight poverty in the area. Proposals included the Gulf Opportunity Zone, which would give more than £5bn in tax breaks to developers of low-income housing, small businesses and individuals. However, worker recovery accounts - which were meant to help storm victims find work by paying for school, job training and childcare - did not materialise. Neither did the Urban Homesteading Act, which had been intended to provide the poor with sites on which to build self-financed homes. | ['us-news/hurricane-katrina', 'us-news/us-news', 'world/world', 'world/hurricanes', 'type/article'] | us-news/hurricane-katrina | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2006-08-29T19:06:10Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
sustainable-business/2014/oct/21/business-academia-uk-food-security-marks-and-spencer-asda | Business and academia join forces to tackle UK food security | As competition over land use hots up and the global population keeps growing, the National Centre for Universities and Business (NCUB) is experimenting with collaboration between agronomy experts and companies in the food supply chain. The non-profit NCUB, which represents around 100 companies and universities, established a cross-sector taskforce in July 2013 to promote innovation and sustainability in the UK’s agri-food sector. Top of the group’s list for discussion is how UK universities might produce the calibre of graduates and research required to meet emerging food security challenges. “Businesses appreciate that there are world-leading experts in the university system”, says Aaron Porter, director of external affairs at NCUB. Similarly, universities are conscious of “funded activities that they could be part of with business.” “Unless they work together, they will miss one another’s opportunities and expertise”, he adds. To that end, the Food Economy Taskforce brings together leaders in both fields. The academic representatives on the 24-member steering committee include food experts from the Universities of Cambridge, Leeds, Dundee, Aberystwyth and Harper Adams, among others. On the business side, companies from across the food supply chain are involved: from Syngenta at the seeds and crop protection end, through to Asda and Marks & Spencer on the high street. The taskforce is co-chaired by former Sainsbury’s chief executive, Justin King. The group is due to publish a list of policy recommendations and action points in February 2015. One key challenge identified by the taskforce to date is the need to enhance the image of the sector to attract young talent. Another area requiring attention is the quality of information provided by academia to business so that the latter can make more sustainable decisions regarding land use. The NCUB is partly financed by the UK’s four main higher education funding bodies. The remainder of the funding comes from its business and university members. The UK university sector is increasingly looking to the private sector as public funding for further education is squeezed, although some fear business involvement is resulting in the commercialisation of academic research. Porter is quick to stress that NCUB’s model focuses on solving common problems and delivering mutual benefits for both parties. “Universities are aware that they have to be engaged in what the businesses around them are active in”, he says. “They can also play a role in helping to shape some R&D [research and development] activity that goes on in business”, he adds. Read more stories like this: How partnerships can pay for business and rural workers The future is bright for corporate-NGO partnerships despite challenges Advertisement feature: Unilever seeks innovative startups for sustainable living hack The sustainable living hub is funded by Unilever. All content is editorially independent except for pieces labelled advertisement feature. Find out more here. Join the community of sustainability professionals and experts. Become a GSB member to get more stories like this direct to your inbox | ['sustainable-business/sustainable-business', 'tone/blog', 'business/business', 'environment/corporatesocialresponsibility', 'global-development/food-security', 'business/marksspencer', 'business/asda', 'type/article', 'profile/oliver-balch'] | environment/corporatesocialresponsibility | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2014-10-21T11:58:32Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
us-news/2015/aug/24/wildfires-smoke-nevada | Western wildfires send noxious smoke to states hundreds of miles from flames | A smoky haze filled Nevada’s Humboldt Valley on Friday, hundreds of miles away from dozens of wildfires raging across the western United States. In downtown Battle Mountain between the Shoshone, Battle Mountain and Sheep Creek mountain ranges of Nevada, a gust of hot wind flings tumbleweed and debris across Broad Street, and a sign outside the visitor center shows temperatures in the mid 90s. Sady Tingey, the executive director of the Battle Mountain Chamber of Commerce says the smoke came in overnight on Wednesday. “When I woke up on Thursday, I thought it was going to rain or storm, but it’s just smoke,” she said, and then produced a bag full of diphenhydramine allergy pills she uses to control resulting symptoms. Tingey says it’s typical to see such smoky conditions during wildfire season in July and August. A patient at the Battle Mountain Clinic jokes that he quit smoking more than a decade ago, but he can “get back into it” by breathing the smoky air. For other residents of Battle Mountain, the smoke is no laughing matter. Mark Meyers, a doctor at the clinic, said there has been “a striking increase in asthma and allergic pink eye and worsening lung disease” over the last week. “It’s been altogether terrible,” he said. Gina McGuire, a meteorologist for the Great Basin Geographic Area Coordination Center said the smoke has its origin in fires blazing across surrounding states. “There are over 64 active large fires north and west of us – some of which are over 100,000 acres,” McGuire said. The fires are concentrated in four states: California, Idaho, Oregon and Washington. Air quality in these four drought-ravaged states from smoke has degraded, in addition to the range of other, more devastating effects. In Washington state, firefighters are struggling to subdue 16 large fires, and Barack Obama has declared a state of emergency there, to activate additional firefighting resources. Fires have burned over 400,000 acres and threaten 5,000 homes in that state alone, according to Steven Friederich, a spokesperson for the Washington state emergency operation center. Three firefighters died last week. But the impact doesn’t stop at the edge of the flames. In addition to Nevada, a map on the University of Maryland Baltimore County’s smog blog shows smoke reaching into Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and even New Mexico. “It’s all about wind and atmospheric stability,” McGuire continues. “Wind direction and speed determines how far and in which direction the smoke will travel. In this case, west to north-west winds brought smoke from all those fires to surrounding states.” While Nevada did have its own 4,000-acre Cold Springs Fire, that blaze was 99% contained by Friday, and was not the primary cause of the poor air pollution, McGuire said. “In order for smoke to happen, the fire has to be active. The more active, or the larger the fire, the more smoke you’ll get from that complex. Our source for smoke is quite large and widespread. And it will have to travel somewhere.” Two cold fronts that are unusual for August also carried smoke from north to south, she says, shrouding the mountains that are barely visible from Interstate highway 80. Local resident and firefighter for the Bureau of Land Management Brock Uhlig agreed Nevada’s fire was not responsible for the smoke. “This smoke is being carried by prevailing winds traveling from west to east,” he said. Friday’s Air Quality Index in much of Nevada fell in the “moderate” to “very unhealthy” range, from 51 to 200. The Environmental Protection Agency considers AQI values of 151 to 200 to be serious enough to trigger health effects in everyone. In Colorado, state officials declared a health advisory warning residents to stay indoors, limit physical activity, or even relocate for those who are particularly vulnerable to respiratory symptoms. “Sixty-four large fires – that’s quite a lot for such a small area of the country,” McGuire said. “Because we have so many, that’s a lot of smoke to put in the atmosphere.” | ['us-news/nevada', 'world/wildfires', 'environment/environment', 'us-news/colorado', 'us-news/us-news', 'world/natural-disasters', 'type/article'] | world/wildfires | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2015-08-24T13:03:01Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
commentisfree/2010/apr/06/whale-hunting-moratorium-japan-iceland | Given all we know of whales, why resume the slaughter? | Paola Cavalieri | Whales are dignified, intelligent and sensitive beings. We have known this for some time, and yet still they remain, much to our shame, susceptible to human assault. In recent centuries, great cetaceans have been driven nearly to extinction while nations competed in the hunt without restraint. But we now live in globalised times. The world has become smaller and, of necessity, more co-ordinated. The old order based on full state sovereignty is being partially replaced by an integrated system of international law. While this change is most visible in the domain of human rights – which has become seen as supported by the "universal conscience of the world's peoples" – other spheres have been affected, too. Not least, the worldwide treatment of whales, a subject which has returned to the headlines as the International Whaling Commission considers plans to green-light limited commercial whaling. In recent decades, a broadening international consensus has begun to emerge in the policies of those institutions concerned with "whaling" – in itself an unpleasant term for what should accurately be called whale hunting – and in particular that of the IWC, created in 1946 to co-ordinate the different national industries. As legal scholars have noted, such policies, by moving from the initial stage of free resource to the present stage of preservation marked by a moratorium on commercial hunting, have come close to acknowledging a major theoretical shift – the adoption of the view that whales are entitled to life. And, though there still are countries – Japan, Norway, and Iceland – which, through various devices, keep hunting, the relevant premises for such a shift are unquestionable. The idea of duty to whales is gradually being translated into obligation under international law. At the same time, the "universal conscience of the world's peoples" is relevant, too: evidenced by the millions of people who regard the killing of whales as inconsistent with current moral ideals; by the number of international NGOs – such as the UK-based Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society – which constantly work to implement such ideals; and by the global sympathy for those who wage war against whale hunters. To this, a powerful new element should be added. We have discovered that whales "sing". Scientists have explained to us that whale societies display complex and stable vocal and behavioural cultures previously suggested only for humans. More impressively still, research into whale behaviour points to an ability to look to the past, present and future – functions on which consciousness of oneself as a distinct entity existing in time are mounted. A relevant backward-looking attitude is revealed, for instance, when hordes of whales, returning to their original territory after long-distance trips, first sing the old songs of the previous year, and then the new songs; the existence of a conscious self in the present, with the attendant ability to attribute mental states to others, is apparent in cases of whales doing acrobatic manoeuvres to warn approaching vessels of their presence; and female killer whales' tutoring of their offspring in the dangerous activity of shallow-water hunting offers evidence of the capacity for formulating and carrying out plans. Since, according to current ethical reflection, the concept of being a person is the concept not of belonging to a certain species but of being endowed with certain mental properties – particularly, self-consciousness – whales turn out to be nonhuman persons, thus confirming the moral soundness of both the trend in international law and the intuitive popular view. Why, then, hasn't the principle of whales' entitlement to life already been agreed? Because of the continuous, subterranean work of a few governments (governments, not nations, as there is also opposition to whaling in the whaling countries). In fact, the IWC is even considering lifting the moratorium, agreed in 1986, thereby allowing commercial hunts. That is, with the acquiescence of some "anti-whaling" governments, a few pressure groups may block a process that would be almost universally welcomed. And what are the grounds for doing it? First, the claim that the depleted species of whales are flourishing again – a claim that, apart from being contested, misses the point, which is now about moral protection, not conservation of harvestable resources. Second, a claim of "cultural exception" based on national cultural practices – an argument about as respectable as that of "cultural exception" advanced by countries that would deny women equal human rights. In the face of these contentions, one can only wish that people let their voices be heard, insisting that tactical interests are not placed above legal and moral progress. Questions have been raised in the past about the IWC role, and proposals were made calling for the UN to assume jurisdiction. This idea has become more relevant today. An institution created with the goal of regulating exploitation is no longer the best organisation to deal with whale protection. If, as humanity comes to recognise the moral standing of whales, the IWC fails to act accordingly, the time may be ripe to remove this task from its hands. | ['commentisfree/commentisfree', 'environment/whaling', 'environment/endangeredspecies', 'environment/environment', 'world/japan', 'world/iceland', 'world/world', 'science/science', 'tone/comment', 'world/europe-news', 'environment/whales', 'environment/cetaceans', 'type/article', 'environment/hunting', 'profile/paola-cavalieri', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/commentanddebate'] | environment/cetaceans | BIODIVERSITY | 2010-04-06T19:00:00Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2017/jul/07/butterfly-endangered-wood-white-country-diary-devon | The first butterfly of the day is the rare wood white | The entrance is easy to miss: an understated wooden sign roughly halfway along the main road traversing Devon north to south. From the turning beside an abandoned rail station a quiet lane that once shuddered under the weight of heavy diggers leads to a car park at Meeth Quarry where I join 20 or so Devon Wildlife Trust members for a field trip. While the others may have come to enjoy the variety of flora and fauna thriving at this relatively new nature reserve, I have one species on my mind – a delicate national rarity that endured here as the land about it was torn apart. For nearly a century rich seams of clay were clawed from this rolling terrain until quarrying ceased in 2004. The deep basins have since filled with water, vegetation has softened hard edges, and the pale scars in the land are beginning to heal. A main path skirts the lakes, running between stands of trees, and we stop now and again to point out birds and puzzle over plants. Morning rain has eased, but few insects are stirring. I’m prepared for disappointment. Then a gap in the clouds allows the sun to work its magic, and the rising temperature teases winged life from the undergrowth. Up ahead I spot the first butterfly of the morning and it looks promising: a small white species flying weakly at knee height. It settles amid the grass, pale folded forewings lightly dusted with grey and unusually rounded, as if shaped using a stencil. I have been rewarded sooner than expected. This is the wood white (Leptidea sinapis), the scarcest of our white butterflies and my first sighting of this endangered species. Habitat changes and a decline in coppicing have left us with only scattered populations of this dainty creature that lives in the kind of sheltered scrub and woodland glades found here. The lone individual before me, wings thin as cigarette paper, seems such a fragile thing to be battling for survival. I wish it well as it takes to the air once again, a light snippet of life fluttering low and unhurried over the path-side foliage. Follow Country diary on Twitter: @gdncountrydiary | ['environment/series/country-diary', 'environment/butterflies', 'environment/endangeredspecies', 'environment/endangered-habitats', 'environment/insects', 'environment/conservation', 'environment/wildlife', 'environment/forests', 'environment/summer', 'environment/environment', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'uk-news/devon', 'profile/charlie-elder', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-weather'] | environment/forests | BIODIVERSITY | 2017-07-07T04:30:03Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
stage/2018/jul/01/the-play-about-my-dad-review-boo-killebrew-hurricane-katrina | The Play About My Dad review – a father in the eye of the storm | How do you tackle Hurricane Katrina, which hit America’s Gulf coast in 2005? Jonathan Holmes in Katrina (2009) gave us a verbatim piece that combined an attack on official ineptitude with stories of personal heroism. Boo Killebrew takes a different tack, creating a piece of meta-theatre in which the playwright, in a style that resembles the Young Vic’s Fun Home, explores her relationship with her estranged father. The play works best when we forget the self-conscious framework and focus on the hurricane’s devastating impact. Boo herself is a central figure in the action, relying on her dad’s memories of the storm and debating with him the nature of dramatic truth. But what really hits home are the portraits of the people involved. We meet a pair of medical technicians trapped in an ambulance, a family of three marooned on the roof of their home and an old storytelling woman filled with ancestral memories. Through them Killebrew touchingly captures different reactions to the catastrophe while showing how it forged a reconciliation between herself and her surgeon father. Even if there is something intrusive about the dramatist’s announcement that she is going to give us a tapestry mixing time-travel and magic realism, Stella Powell-Jones’s production skilfully knits together the script’s different elements and gets a series of strong performances. As the dad, David Schaal both captures the doctor’s past dilemma over whether or not to abandon his family and conveys the fundamental decency of a man attending victims of the cyclone. Hannah Britland as his daughter, Ammar Duffus as a prophetic paramedic and Miquel Brown as the aged storyteller lend staunch support in a play that poignantly reminds us of the hurricane’s preventable horrors. At Jermyn Street theatre, London, until 21 July. Box office: 020-7287 2875. | ['stage/theatre', 'us-news/hurricane-katrina', 'stage/stage', 'culture/culture', 'type/article', 'tone/reviews', 'stage/jermyn-street-theatre', 'profile/michaelbillington', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/g2', 'theguardian/g2/arts', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-culture'] | us-news/hurricane-katrina | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2018-07-01T10:51:21Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
lifeandstyle/2021/sep/21/fit-for-purpose-how-to-save-clothes-that-no-longer-suit-your-shape-or-lifestyle | Fit for purpose: how to save clothes that no longer suit your shape or lifestyle | One of my favourite quotes about fashion is from the late Diana Vreeland: “Fashion is part of the daily air, it changes all the time. You can feel the approaching of a revolution in clothes.” Just as fashions change, our need for certain types of clothes changes too. As we grow up or grow old, live through pandemics or enter an era of rising global temperatures, inevitably we outgrow what’s in our wardrobes. Now is as good a time as any to reconsider the clothes you own but don’t wear and what to do with them if they’re no longer a fit, in every sense of the word. Straightforward fixes Mats Ekstrom is the owner of Swensk, a Swedish clothing store in Melbourne’s city centre that offers a hands-on service, emphasising tailoring and fit. If you’ve gained a bit of weight because of “lockdown and wine drinking”, not to worry, he says. Trousers usually have enough fabric stored in the waist seam to be let out a size, which is something a tailor can handle. Another easy fix for garments that are a bit snug is to move buttons half a centimetre here or there. Ekstrom emphasises to his clients that small adjustments can make big differences to how things look. It’s important to have your proportions in balance, he says and advocates making sure your sleeves are the right length – roughly halfway between your wrist bone and the bone at the bottom of your hand. For trousers, the length should be in proportion to your height and the width of the pant leg, which might sometimes come down to “personality”. As long as there’s enough fabric a good tailor can change their silhouette, to make them more current. Ekstrom suggests showing the tailor a pair of trousers you like so they can emulate the cut. If you’ve grown more than a size it can be trickier, because “making things bigger is really hard to do”. He suggests taking a practical view and asking if “you’ll ever really have the body of a 20-year-old again?” If not, he says, it’s time to sell or give those clothes away (without sending them to landfill). Turning old into new Nicole Mallalieu, a fashion lecturer at the Australian College of the Arts, welcomes a growing movement of designers and young people cutting up old garments and fashioning them into new pieces. From the reconstructed T-shirt dresses of the Central Saint Martin’s graduate Conner Ives, the reworked clothing of the Melbourne label TLC World and Romance Was Born’s found fabric Forever range to the kids all over Depop, in the right pair of scissor-hands, old clothes can be given value and currency. Mallalieu suggests drawing inspiration from this when contemplating what to do with clothes you really love but probably won’t ever fit into again. If you can’t sew, she says, a tailor should be able to replace a waistband with more forgiving stretch fabric or turn a too-snug jacket into a vest. Dresses that are too small can be turned into skirts and tops. This allows for more flexibility in alterations, she says: lowering the waistline on an A-line skirt can give you more room, while the top half could be worn layered or with pants, or attached to a different skirt. Share the love Sometimes we outgrow clothes because they no longer serve our lifestyles or our mood, Mallalieu says, but it’s important to continue to see the value in them. “There’s an enormous amount of embedded energy that exists in these clothes,” she says – from people and from the environment. She suggests finding somebody who might wear it, for instance a friend or family member, on the basis that they’ll return it when they’re done with it. Doing this means the stories behind the clothes can be shared, hopefully saving the piece from becoming “another anonymous garment in a pile of unsorted, discarded clothes at an op shop”. She suggests starting these conversations with: “I love this but I don’t wear it any more.” | ['lifeandstyle/series/closet-clinic', 'fashion/fashion', 'fashion/australia-fashion', 'lifeandstyle/lifeandstyle', 'lifeandstyle/sewing', 'lifeandstyle/diy', 'environment/recycling', 'environment/environment', 'environment/ethical-living', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/lucianne-tonti', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-lifestyle'] | environment/recycling | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2021-09-20T17:30:12Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
environment/2010/may/13/glenn-beck-fox-news | Glenn Beck holds up Maurice Strong as evidence of 'global government' conspiracy | Leo Hickman | Lock up your children: the bogey man cometh. We know this because Fox News rabble-rouser Glenn Beck has kindly forewarned us. Yesterday, he informed his devoted followers that they should be on the look out for the approaching tentacles of a "global government". The contention of many ideologically fuelled climate sceptics, such as Beck, is that global warming is being used by malevolent, socialist forces lurking in the shadows to usher in a "new world order". The commies have invented this faked, jumped-up "science" as a Trojan horse to achieve their master plan. Or something like that, anyway. Beck has obviously been thumbing through the catalogue of conspiracy theories online because he decided to use a quote from a man called Maurice Strong which has been bouncing around unchallenged in the sceptic echo chamber for years as evidence that the heralding of a global government is a clear and present danger. Here's what Strong, a former executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme is said to have told a reporter in 1990: What if a small group of these world leaders were to conclude that the principal risk to the Earth comes from the actions of the rich countries? In order to save the planet, the group decides: Isn't the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn't it our responsibility to bring this about? Beck responds to this quote with his trademark "humour": Now, I want to be very clear here, because we talked to the reporter that did this interview in 1990 up in Canada. And I want to be very clear: He [Strong] was fantasizing about a plot of a novel he was thinking about writing. [Pause.] Yeah. Beck then reveals to his audience that Strong has not actually written any novels since 1990 – or ever. You know what? He's been busy – he's got this great novel idea, but he hasn't had time to do it because he's involved in collapsing the global economies into the hands of a global government. Isn't that interesting? It's almost like his book. Hmm. Maybe it's performance art. Media Matters has already performed a detailed take-down of Beck's "analysis", but, needless to say, this is unlikely to influence Beck's legion of truthers who, judging by the fact that the term "Maurice Strong" is now trending on Twitter, have evidently rushed online to find out the real deal about this – in their lingo - "watermelon" evildoer. When they throw his name into the search engines they will also see that his name has been linked to the Illuminati, the Bilderberg group and the "Jewish banking conspiracy". Frankly, it's a bit of a surprise that this 81-year-old Canadian hasn't been accused of lurking in the undergrowth on the grassy knoll in Dallas on 22 November 1963. (What isn't a surprise, though, is that the Maurice Strong meme is also being perpetuated by the likes of our dear friends Lord Monckton and James Delingpole – both of whom have appeared on the Glenn Beck show.) Glenn Beck did not include Strong in his show and I wonder how many of Beck's viewers will bother to visit Maurice Strong's own website where he actually goes to the bother of responding to the many accusations that have been tossed his way over the years? Here, he responds to the use of the quote Beck took such a fancy to, a quote that has also been used by a columnist for Canada's Financial Post called Peter Foster: A particularly dishonest statement by long-time critic, Peter Foster, to his own editor, citing a fictional account which was clearly stated to be an extreme scenario of what might happen by the year 2030 if we failed to act. This specifically stated that it was not a prediction, and certainly not a recommendation, but the kind of prospect we must seek to avoid. This response by the accused party doesn't seem to have made it into Beck's report, but I suppose we shouldn't be too surprised for it is a classic example of the decontextualised mudslinging that now persists among certain sections of the climate debate. Personally, I know very little about the history, ideology and motives of Maurice Strong – he may well be one of the four horseman of the apocalypse for all I know - but it strikes me that his critics should at least hear what he has to say in his defence. But, then again, that might elicit an inconvenient truth, as their other leading bogey man would say. | ['environment/climate-change-scepticism', 'tone/blog', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'media/glenn-beck', 'media/media', 'media/fox-news', 'environment/environment', 'environment/blog', 'type/article', 'profile/leohickman'] | environment/climate-change-scepticism | CLIMATE_DENIAL | 2010-05-13T14:26:08Z | true | CLIMATE_DENIAL |
lifeandstyle/article/2024/jul/20/theyve-been-something-else-this-year-slugs-wreak-havoc-on-uk-gardens | ‘They’ve been something else this year’: slugs wreak havoc on UK gardens | There are about 150 species of slimy molluscs in the UK and while not all of them have a taste for plants, the wet weather conditions in spring and summer has led to slugs causing havoc in gardens, balconies and fields across Britain. Social media has been inundated with people complaining about the amount of slugs cropping up in their green spaces, and desperate for tips on how to get rid of them. “They have been something else this year,” one user comments underneath a video where she pans across a small patch of grass ridden with slugs. “They’re horrible and they’ve decimated my tomatoes and peppers. Hate the slimy demons,” another comments. A mild and moist spring and relatively cool start to the summer have created the ideal conditions for slugs to thrive, says Dr Andrew Salisbury, the head of plant health at RHS Garden Wisley. “Slugs and snails are particularly active when it’s mild and damp and so we can be certain they are more active and more visible,” he says, “but whether there are fundamentally more of them, we cannot say.” And people aren’t just turning to social media for advice about slugs – the RHS’s garden advice service has been swamped with pleas for help. “We saw a huge peak in slug inquiries in March, April and going into May … we saw three times as many slug inquiries in March this year compared to 2023,” Salisbury says. “Sometimes it’s just a pure diagnosis, so people don’t actually know that it’s slugs that cause the damage … they are asking us what they can do about the damage because in some cases, people do lose entire plants, or you just put your lettuces or your beans out and they disappear overnight,” he says. Otherwise, they are looking for advice about how to deal with them. Lewis Normand, the president of the Royal Caledonian Horticultural Society and professional horticulturist, says overnight rain creates an environment where garden molluscs can eat plants while we sleep. “Vegetable growers in particular have been affected, with personal experience of courgettes, squash and young tomato plants being chomped on and either damaged or completely eaten earlier this summer,” he says. And people who have balconies also have to accept a degree of slug damage. “It’s amazing how high they can actually climb,” Salisbury says. “If you look on a damp wall, you can actually see slime trails going right the way up to the roof sometimes. “And once they’ve found something they like, they will stay around and go and hide in the soil during the day.” Slugs are not only a problem in the home – they are also the biggest agricultural pest in UK farming. “The damage that slugs do is very, very early on in the crops life, when the seed is just emerging or even before it’s emerged, they’ll hollow out the seed,” Tom Allen-Stevens, the founder of the British On-Farm Innovation Network (Bofin) that is leading a project called Slimers, which looks into sustainable methods to control slugs on farms. “We get asked, are slugs that bad? And yes, they are. They’re actually a nightmare,” he says. The study is focused on the Deroceras agreste, or grey field slug, which eats the most young crops in fields. The Arion vulgaris, more commonly known as the Spanish slug, and the Arion ater black slug, are the species often doing damage in gardens or balconies. But is it justified to take measures to get rid of them completely? “What we often say is, it is a bad year. Accept that and tolerate some damage,” Salisbury says. Some people use eggshells, grit, and pellets to try to get rid of them, but many barrier methods are not scientifically proven to be effective. Nematodes are also often used, which affect only molluscs, but they kill all slugs and snails – even the harmless ones that are important for the ecosystem. Salt is another popular choice, but is “incredibly cruel”, Salisbury says, advising against it. “Essentially, the slugs die by rapid dehydration and chemical burns. “Also, if you’re putting large amounts of salt on your soil, it’s no good for the soil or the plants. So actually, salt is potentially more harmful because it’s so indiscriminate.” Having a pond in your garden is great, he says, because amphibians feed on slugs. Other natural methods such as introducing some leaf litter can encourage other predators, such as hedgehogs, that eat the slugs and snails. If you want to follow the farmers, you can try consolidating the soil, which removes some of the cracks in the soil the slugs burrow down into, Allen-Stevens says. “Some farmers swear by it, but i’m not sure how effective it would be in a garden … it’s about avoiding the really cloddy soils, which is not so much of an issue on balconies.” Normand recommends trapping molluscs in jam or beer in half-buried jars, and discourages slug and snail killers due to the toxins they contain. “If you own ducks or chickens, they make light work of slugs and snails,” he adds. “Personally, I accept that sometimes you win and sometimes you lose,” he says. He chooses to pick off slugs or snails from his plants by hand. | ['lifeandstyle/gardens', 'environment/wildlife', 'environment/plants', 'environment/environment', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'profile/mabel-banfield-nwachi', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-home-news'] | environment/wildlife | BIODIVERSITY | 2024-07-20T10:00:35Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
australia-news/2023/jul/04/migatoo-could-white-whale-spotted-off-nsws-south-coast-be-another-migaloo | Migatoo? Could white whale spotted off NSW’s south coast be another Migaloo? | A small white whale has been filmed off the New South Wales coast, prompting questions over whether it is a rare albino whale like the famous Migaloo. The whale was spotted by a Batemans Bay photographer, Dylan Golden, 19, who was taking pictures of a whale migration on the morning on 28 June when he spotted the mother and her calf. Golden’s sighting follows another white whale sighting off Queensland’s coast which prompted ocean watchers to wonder if it could be Migaloo, the elusive albino humpback who has not been seen in years. Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup Last month scientists cautioned that the Queensland sighting might not be Migaloo – and scientists have once again raised doubt about the NSW sighting, although they say it not being an albino doesn’t make it less exciting. What do we know about the NSW white whale? Golden said he had been filming whales for at least two hours and was about to pack up when he spotted the mother and calf last week. “I was just about to come back in when I saw of splash out at the end of the point,” Golden said. He flew his drone out there and noticed the calf was “very, very, very pale”. The photographer has been capturing the whale migration since he was 14 and says he has never seen a whale so white. “It was really, really cool to see,” he said. “I’ve just never seen anything like it before.” Golden said this season had been busy. He has spotted more than 100 whales already and it appears they are swimming closer to shore than the last few seasons. Could it be an albino whale? Olaf Meynecke, a marine scientist from Griffith University, said the young whale was probably not albino but just a few days old. Very young calves can appear white or gold because of a layer of down covering. “Given the size and the time, I would strongly suggest that it’s a newborn that’s only maybe just two or three days old,” he said. “It doesn’t make it less exciting, it’s still really exciting to have such a small newborn out there.” Migaloo, the only known albino humpback whale in Australia’s east coast population, was first spotted in 1991 at Byron Bay when he was estimated to be about two years old. He has been spotted occasionally in the intervening years, with the last confirmed sighting in 2020 off the coast of Port Macquarie. In 2004 tissue samples collected from Migaloo, which is a First Nations word for “white fella”, confirmed its lack of pigmentation was due to albinism. What about the Queensland whale? A tourist flying over the Great Barrier Reef filmed what appeared to be a white humpback whale swimming north, as thousands of humpbacks make their annual migration from Antartica to warmer waters to breed. “It’s clear from the footage it’s unmistakably a white whale but there is always an element of doubt, which is why we can’t confirm until we’re 100%,” said Vanessa Pirotta, a whale expert at Macquarie University. “If it is him it would be incredible that this one iconic whale has avoided being seen for so long along one of the busiest coastlines in the world.” Pirotta encouraged anyone else who thinks they spot Migaloo to send the information to the White Whale Research Centre. | ['environment/whales', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'environment/environment', 'campaign/email/afternoon-update', 'australia-news/south-coast', 'environment/marine-life', 'environment/cetaceans', 'australia-news/new-south-wales', 'australia-news/queensland', 'type/article', 'tone/explainers', 'profile/cait-kelly', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/cetaceans | BIODIVERSITY | 2023-07-03T15:00:36Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2016/may/04/florida-coral-reefs-disintegrating-climate-change | Florida's coral reefs rapidly 'wasting away' under stress of climate change | Florida’s coral reefs are disintegrating far more quickly than previously thought, with warming, acidifying oceans causing a “wasting away” of the coral structures that support an abundance of marine life, new research has found. Scientists had previously thought that Florida’s reef, the only barrier reef in the continental US, wouldn’t start to break up until around 2050. But recent analysis shows that this process is already under way in parts of the reef system, driven by accelerating climate change. “We don’t have as much time as we previously thought,” said Chris Langdon, a professor at the University of Miami and a senior author of the study. “The reefs are beginning to dissolve away.” Langdon’s team spent two years surveying a 200km (124-mile) tract of Florida’s reef, stretching from Biscayne national park to the Florida Keys. The scientists found that the upper Florida Keys are in significant decline, well ahead of the expected “tipping point” where the warming oceans severely curtail coral development. As human activity pumps out greenhouse gases, the Earth’s oceans have acted as a sort of sponge, sucking up huge quantities of carbon dioxide. This extra heat has caused the oceans to warm and expand, causing the sea level to rise, fueled by the melting of polar ice. The excess carbon dioxide has also caused the oceans to become more than 30% more acidic over the past century. This hinders the ability of corals to form their limestone structures, as well shellfish and mollusks to form their shells. Fish behavior has also been altered by the saturation of CO2, studies have found. Normally, Florida’s coral limestone grows in the spring and summer months, aided by favorable water temperature, light and seagrass growth conditions. In winter, this process slows or even reverses as seagrasses decay and the light wanes. The University of Miami study, published in Global Biogeochemical Cycles, found that falling ocean pH, caused by acidification, is overwhelming the spring and summer growth of corals, meaning that the Florida reefs are being pushed into structural decline. “The reefs are wasting away,” Langdon said. “Each year, the reefs are going to lose some of their structure. This is one more reason why we need to get serious about reducing carbon dioxide emission sooner rather than later.” Florida’s reef is home to 100 coral species and more than 400 fish species, making it one of the most important reef systems in the world. It faces a number of pressures, however, with dredging of the seabed for port expansion causing corals to be smothered by silt. The grandson of famed ocean explorer Jacques Cousteau recently warned that plans to expand a port at Fort Lauderdale were “lunacy” due to the impact upon the corals. Globally, coral reefs are undergoing a widespread bleaching event, driven by the El Niño phenomenon and climate change. Australia’s Great Barrier Reef has experienced widespread bleaching, which is where prolonged high temperatures cause the coral to expel the symbiotic algae living in their tissues, causing them to whiten. This can lead to the coral completely dying off. Although coral reefs are found in less than 1% of the surface area of the world’s oceans, they support a riot of biodiversity, with 25% of the Earth’s marine creatures relying upon them for food and shelter. Corals are creatures that take root on the ocean floor, using their tiny, tentacle-like arms to capture food from the water. Coral polyps secrete a hard outer skeleton of limestone that attaches to rocks or other polyps, helping form reef structures. The loss of coral reefs would have devastating consequences throughout the aquatic food chain and impact the 500 million people around the world who rely upon them for food and income. | ['environment/coral', 'environment/marine-life', 'environment/environment', 'environment/wildlife', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'us-news/us-news', 'us-news/florida', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/oliver-milman', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-news'] | environment/marine-life | BIODIVERSITY | 2016-05-04T17:12:20Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/damian-carrington-blog/2011/may/23/green-investment-bank-economy-clegg | Green investment bank: coalition puts its money where its mouth is | Damian Carrington | Putting your money where your mouth is a good way to persuade others you are serious. And today, by setting up a serious green investment bank (GIB), the UK government has gone some way to persuading investors that they believe their own rhetoric on the urgent need to develop a green economy. The coalition has sunk £3bn of taxpayers money into a bank that will run independently of government and will, eventually, be able to borrow as well as lend. The government now has a powerful incentive to stick to its stated plans to use its power to create a clean, green economy: getting its money back. That simple fact, I'm told, is hugely important to investors who are sitting on a many billions of private UK cash, looking for secure investments. If it does give those investors the confidence to put their money into windfarms, energy efficiency schemes and more, today's move by the government will have been perhaps the most significant green move they have made. Now, if you think the details of the GIB are a little arcane, you'd be right. But here's why I think you should care. The GIB, the first national development bank in the world to be dedicated to the low carbon economy, might just be the turning point in the UK when we leave the dirty old economy behind and start really building the stable, sustainable green economy. That means new jobs, cleaner air, less severe impacts from global warming and more. When we look back, it may truly have started here. On all the significant details of the GIB bar one or two, the government backed the green option, dispelling much of the GIB gloom that followed chancellor George Osborne's budget speech. It will be independent and established in law. My Guardian colleague Fiona Harvey asked will it be able to borrow from the capital markets? Yes, said deputy prime minister Nick Clegg, who made the GIB announcement. Furthermore, the £3bn seed money no longer depends on asset sales: the Treasury has underwritten the sum. The reaction from business, campaigners and engineers has been among the most positive I can recall for a green announcement: campaigners always ask for more than they think they will get, but there was little they didn't get here. The one big obstacle remaining is when the GIB can start borrowing. The chancellor George Osborne disappointed many when he said in the budget that it would not be until 2015 and only if the national debt is falling by then. That hasn't changed. Clegg was challenged by LSE economist Dimitri Zenghelis, who said 2015 was "exactly the wrong date", arguing that the moribund cash pile in the UK at the moment needs putting to work now. But James Cameron, vice-chair of Climate Change Capital, said 2015 would be OK for the big infrastructure projects that take time to set up. So are we all feeling a bit more confident that the green economy can take root and grow? Yes, after a black budget, the coalition overcome infighting to deliver on carbon budgets and the GIB. But there's a bit of politics to take into account too. Clegg's speech was full of rousing words and ambition, but he also made some political comments that are not in the official transcript. Clegg said: "The LibDems have long been the greenest of the main three parties - the difference now is that it is not just a green party but a green party of government." That is clearly part of the stronger LibDem voice promised after their recent electoral drubbings and a reminder to LibDem voters that they are getting some return on their vote. Rather bizarrely, Clegg even praised business secretary Vince Cable, who has been more prominent recently for joining the trolls of the treasury in trying to block carbon cuts. "Vince Cable in particular has devoted a huge amount of time and energy to getting us where we are today, and I know he will continue to do so as we move forward." Is it just me, or is that a bit ambiguous? Anyway, the risk remains that the green ardour of this coalition government burns most brightly in the hearts of the junior partner. Will the Conservatives seize future opportunities to demonstrate their dominance by dumping on other green policies? Prime minister David Cameron overruled Osborne and Cable in committing the UK to big cuts in future greenhouse gas emissions last week. If he keeps on that track, his much-mocked promise to the "greenest government ever" may yet come to pass. | ['environment/damian-carrington-blog', 'environment/green-economy', 'environment/environment', 'tone/blog', 'environment/green-politics', 'business/business', 'business/banking', 'environment/green-jobs', 'politics/politics', 'environment/green-investment-bank', 'type/article', 'profile/damiancarrington'] | environment/green-politics | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2011-05-23T15:25:00Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
world/2013/jun/22/monsoon-rains-sweep-away-villages-india | Indian floods sweep away villages near holy site, leaving at least 575 dead | Flash floods and landslides unleashed by early monsoon rains have killed at least 575 people in northern India, with tens of thousands of people still missing and entire villages destroyed. More heavy rain is forecast. Rescue efforts involving 12,000 soldiers are continuing, and more than 50 air force helicopters have been dropping food, water and medical supplies to people trapped by the water in the foothills of the Himalayas. Others are airlifting survivors where they can be reached. Tourists and pilgrims have been caught up in the disaster in Uttarakhand, a holy place for Hindus, where tens of thousands had been visiting ahead of the expected arrival of the rainy season. Many people have been stranded for five days in what the Indian government has called a "national disaster". The flooding, which began almost a week ago with the heaviest rainfall this area has seen in 60 years, has worsened steadily with houses and blocks of flats on the banks of the Ganges, India's longest river, toppling into the torrent and being swept away with cars, trucks and even bridges. Smaller streams have burst their banks, making hill passes inaccessible and smaller mountain roads have simply disappeared in the flooding. According to government officials, at least 33,000 people have been rescued so far and around 63,000 are missing, 40,000 of them pilgrims. Home minister Sushilkumar Shinde, who arrived in the Uttarakhand capital of Dehradun to review rescue efforts, said operations are now on a war footing to evacuate the stranded. The railways are running special trains from the devastated areas to take survivors home. "Whatever is humanly possible is being done," said Manish Tewari, the minister of information and broadcasting. The rains eased on Saturdaybut more heavy rain is expected from Sunday onwards, meaning that rescuers face a narrowing window of opportunity to reach the stranded. "So far, 575 bodies have been recovered, but the toll is likely to go up. As per our records, 62,790 people are still stranded," said Uttarakhand's home secretary, Om Prakash, on Saturday. He said an eight-strong team of doctors and officials had been sent to the Hindu pilgrimage site of Kedarnath temple "to collect the bodies lying there". "This kind of disaster has never happened in Himalayan history," said one official. Some local people are complaining of neglect from relief agencies, alleging priority is being given to the tourists and Hindu pilgrims but, while the authorities have admitted to poor co-ordination of the rescue effort, the army is struggling to repair roads and bridges to reach more remote areas. The Indian prime minister, Manmohan Singh, has called the situation "distressing" and offered 200,000 rupees (£2,000) to each family of those who have lost their lives, plus 50,000 rupees (£400) to the injured from his national relief fund. He also pledged money to people who have lost their homes. The rains have spared the summer sowing season in northern India, as planting of rice, sugar, cotton and other agricultural produce is not yet in full swing. Heavy rain early in the June-September season makes planting easier, but if flooding persists stagnant water can delay sowing or damage rice shoots. Floods and landslides from monsoon rains have also hit neighbouring Nepal, killing at least 39 people, the Nepalese government said. Google has opened up its person-finder tool in Hindi and English to help trace missing people in Uttarakhand. India's National Disaster Management Authority has published control room phone numbers for the flood-affected districts. | ['world/india', 'world/natural-disasters', 'environment/flooding', 'world/world', 'world/nepal', 'tone/news', 'environment/environment', 'type/article', 'profile/tracymcveigh', 'publication/theobserver', 'theobserver/news', 'theobserver/news/worldnews'] | environment/flooding | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2013-06-22T16:23:46Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
news/2020/jan/22/how-the-polar-vortex-influences-britain-weather | How the polar vortex influences Britain's weather | The polar vortex is a stratospheric area of low pressure across the North Pole that forms during autumn. As it grows, westerly stratospheric winds strengthen at mid-latitudes in the northern hemisphere and allow cold air to build up across the North Pole. These westerly stratospheric winds are what is known as the jet stream. The jet stream typically drives UK weather, with areas of low pressure from the Atlantic bringing the cloudy and wet weather that we are used to. However, the strengthening of the jet stream through autumn and winter as a result of the expanding polar vortex is why we see stormier conditions during late autumn and winter compared with other periods of the year. An example of the link between a strong polar vortex and stormier weather came just last week. Many parts of the UK had frequent spells of wet and windy weather between Monday and Thursday. This included Storm Brendan, which brought strong winds and heavy rain to southern and western areas in particular. This coincided with the polar vortex being almost at record strength. And just as the polar vortex weakened later last week, so the weather calmed down. | ['news/series/weatherwatch', 'uk/weather', 'world/extreme-weather', 'type/article', 'tone/features', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-weather'] | news/series/weatherwatch | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2020-01-22T21:30:36Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
business/2009/mar/30/mandelson-ukaea-privatise | Peter Mandelson puts UKAEA clean-up crew up for sale | The break-up and privatisation of Britain's nuclear industry will complete its first phase by the summer after business secretary Peter Mandelson today agreed to sell the UK Atomic Energy Authority's decommissioning business unit. The planned sale follows the privatisation of large swaths of formerly government-owned nuclear generation and decommissioning facilities, leaving the regulation of the industry, research and development and some consultancy businesses in public hands. More than 200 staff at UKAEA who handle decommissioning, waste management and clean-up of Dounreay fast breeder reactors and ageing Magnox plants Harwell and Winfrith will be part of the sale. In a written statement, Mandelson said the government would keep a minority stake in the business and hoped to complete a deal before the end of July. The winning bidder is expected to be in prime position to pick up work undertaken by UKAEA and decommissioning work offered separately by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, though the government has pledged that rival bidders will enjoy a level playing field whichever firm succeeds in buying the unit. Following the sale, the government is expected to offer contracts for decommissioning Dounreay, Harwell and Winfrith. Mandelson said: "The sale is recognition of the work done by management in creating a commercially viable enterprise that has become an important repository of key nuclear skills that will help ensure that the UK will remain at the forefront of the nuclear services industry." The Tories suggested the sale was motivated by a pressing need to boost the public finances. "The timing of this sale raises concerns," said the shadow energy secretary, Greg Clark. "This sale may be being made to help the government out of a short-term cash crisis at the expense of our long-term competitiveness. "The government has awarded contracts worth millions of pounds to UKAEA Limited for decommissioning nuclear power stations and is reliant on the company to deliver them. The government must have cast-iron guarantees that any buyer will not hold the taxpayer to ransom for further payments for decommissioning Dounreay, Harwell and Winfrith." UKAEA chairwoman Barbara Judge said more than 500 staff would remain at UKAEA to handle IT services for the industry, property development on nuclear sites and a fledgling consultancy business. Bidders are expected to include several private equity firms and engineering firms such as Amec and Bechtel. US energy firm Fluor has indicated it wants to enter the UK market after teaming up with Toshiba to develop a new generation of nuclear reactors in the US. Last year it lost out to Amec on a £1.3bn contract to clean up Sellafield. In January Mandelson welcomed Fluor's plans to expand its presence in the UK with a new headquarters in Farnborough, Surrey. | ['business/business', 'environment/nuclearpower', 'uk/uk', 'business/amec', 'business/government-borrowing', 'business/privateequity', 'tone/news', 'type/article', 'profile/phillipinman'] | environment/nuclearpower | ENERGY | 2009-03-30T19:46:13Z | true | ENERGY |
news/2014/aug/08/weatherwatch-tonkin-incident-radar-vietnam-war | Weatherwatch: Angels of death | This week sees the 50th anniversary of a war triggered by an unusual weather phenomenon, highlighting the hazards of radar identification. On the night of 4 August 1964, the US destroyers Maddox and Turner Joy reported a torpedo attack by North Vietnamese aircraft and boats in the Tonkin Gulf. This followed a similar action two days earlier, and President Johnson ordered retaliatory air strikes. The conflict escalated into the Vietnam War. However, within a few hours of the alleged attack, Captain Herrick of the Maddox cabled Washington that it may never have happened: "Freak weather effects on radar and overeager sonarmen may have accounted for many reports. No actual visual sightings by Maddox." Phantom images known as "radar angels" have been recorded since radar was first used in the 1940's. "Dot angels" can be caused by flocks of birds, or even clouds of insects. "Layer angels" occur when the interface between hot and cold air in the atmosphere reflects radio waves, sometimes giving the impression of ships or aircraft. Turbulent mixing of layers of different temperatures also gives rise to fleeting phantom images. The "Tonkin Gulf Ghost" or "Tonkin Spook" is a local phenomenon which was later to become familiar to US radar operators. It can produce a convincing ship or plane on radar, even on clear days when there is visibly nothing there. The crew of the Maddox assumed the incoming tracks were Vietnamese attackers, and in the volatile political climate the incident led to war. | ['news/series/weatherwatch', 'tone/features', 'type/article', 'profile/davidhambling', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2'] | news/series/weatherwatch | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2014-08-08T20:30:00Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2020/nov/20/microplastic-pollution-found-near-summit-of-mount-everest | Microplastic pollution found near summit of Mount Everest | Microplastic pollution has been discovered in snow close to the peak of Mount Everest, the world’s highest mountain. With plastic debris revealed in 2018 at the deepest point on Earth, the Mariana Trench, it is now clear that humanity’s litter has polluted the entire planet. The tiny plastic fibres were found within a few hundred metres of the top of the 8,850-metre mountain, at a spot known as the balcony. Microplastics were found in all the snow samples collected from 11 locations on Everest, ranging from 5,300 metres to 8,440 metres high. The highest concentrations of microplastics were found around Base Camp, where climbers and trekkers spend the most time. The fibres were most likely to have come from the clothing, tents and ropes used by mountaineers, the scientists said. Other recent discoveries of microplastic pollution in remote parts of the Swiss Alps and French Pyrenees indicate the particles can also be carried by the wind from further afield. “It really surprised me to find microplastics in every single snow sample I analysed,” said Imogen Napper, at the University of Plymouth, who led the new research. “Mount Everest is somewhere I have always considered remote and pristine. To know we are polluting near the top of the tallest mountain is a real eye-opener.” “With microplastics so ubiquitous in our environment, it’s time to focus on appropriate environmental solutions,” she said. “We need to protect and care for our planet.” Reducing, reusing and recycling larger items of plastic waste is important, Napper said, as they can be broken down into microplastics when discarded into the environment. But many microplastics are shed from clothing made from synthetic fabrics, and she said a focus on better fabrics was needed, as well as using natural fibres such as cotton when possible. Millions of tonnes of plastic are lost into the environment every year. It can contain toxic additives and carry harmful microbes and is known to injure wildlife that mistake it for food. People also consume microplastics via food and water, and breathe them in, although the health impact is not yet known. There have been longstanding concerns about litter on Everest, which was climbed by at least 880 people in 2019. But the new study is the first to assess microplastic pollution, which is less than 5mm in size and therefore too small to be picked up. The study, published in the journal One Earth, analysed samples collected by a National Geographic expedition in 2019. The scientists found an average of 30 microplastic particles per litre of water in the snow samples and 119 particles per litre in the most contaminated sample. They also assessed stream water samples from eight locations, but only three had microplastics, perhaps as the streams were able to wash away contamination. In her previous work, Napper has found that each cycle of a washing machine can release 700,000 microscopic plastic fibres, and that plastic bags that claim to be biodegradable were still intact after three years in the natural environment. | ['environment/plastic', 'world/everest', 'environment/waste', 'environment/pollution', 'world/world', 'tone/news', 'type/article', 'profile/damiancarrington', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-environment'] | environment/waste | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE | 2020-11-20T16:00:33Z | true | POLLUTION_AND_WASTE |
sustainable-business/sustainable-fashion-blog/2014/aug/26/fashion-industry-sustainable-water-live-chat | How can the fashion industry act for a sustainable water future? - live chat | Looking at the Earth from afar and seeing some 70% of it blue, you might think we couldn’t possibly run out of water. But the kind of water we can drink, wash with and use to irrigate our fields is actually incredibly rare – freshwater makes up just 3% of the world’s water, and two-thirds of it is inaccessible. Far from an abundance, according to WWF’s 2012 Living Planet Report (pdf), 2.7 billion people live in catchments that experience severe water scarcity for at least one month a year. Of the freshwater available to us, an estimated 70% is used for irrigation, 8% goes towards domestic use, and 22% is used by industry – the fashion industry among them. From growing thirsty fibre crops, to dyeing fabrics and washing clothes at home, fashion needs water. With a growing population competing for water resources, and an increasingly volatile climate, the textile and apparel industry needs to get to grips with the sustainability of its water stewardship or risk being left high and dry. There are a few examples of big brands working to improve and safeguard their water usage. Levi’s, in partnership with one of its Chinese suppliers, recently made 100,000 pairs of jeans using 100% recycled water. As a result, it claims to have saved 12m litres of water, the equivalent of almost five Olympic-size swimming pools. Levi’s now provides all its supplier factories with technical guidance on reusing and recycling water with its new water-saving standard, a body of requirements the brand will share with other textile industry stakeholders. In 2012, WWF and H&M conducted a wholesale evaluation of H&M’s water related challenges, to inform the company’s new water strategy. While Nudie jeans has implemented a water reuse policy in its manufacturing process and urges customers not to wash their jeans for six months. Join the experts for a live chat Join us during World Water Week on this page on Tuesday 2 September at 1pm - 2.30pm BST for a live chat with a panel of experts to discuss questions including: How can fashion brands understand and assess their water impacts and risks? How can brands collaborate with NGOs and other companies on water issues? What’s being done to clean up water pollution from textile dyeing and treatment? The impact of washing clothes - how can consumers take more responsibility and how can brands help them? What improvements exist in dye and laundry technologies? Potential of alternative fibre sources to reduce water usage? On the panel Ariel Kraten, senior consultant, Made-BY. Ariel supports fashion brands in their efforts to become more sustainable, such as through developing tools and training programmes on highly technical subjects like chemical reduction or sustainable wet processing. Peter Faaborg, global marketing director at Novozymes for technical industries covering biological solutions for textile and leather processing as well as wastewater treatment. Cate Lamb, head of CDP’s water programme. Cate’s role involves working with key stakeholders to deliver changes in the corporate management of water. Cate has 10 years of experience in the environmental and sustainable development fields and has a strong technical, scientific and project management background. Felix Ockborn, environmental sustainability coordinator, responsible for corporate water strategy for the H&M Group. Since 2012 Ockber has been project manager for H&M’s partnership with WWF on water stewardship. Previously, Felix was based in Hong Kong and Shanghai for several years, working with H&M’s supply chain sustainability program in East Asia. Laila Petri, manager, Corporate Relations at WWF International. Laila works on a variety of environmental topics with a particular focus on water stewardship, and leads the WWF programme of water stewardship for the textiles sector. She also sits on the board of the Alliance for Water Stewardship on behalf of WWF. Previously, Laila spent four years in the CSR Plan A team at Marks and Spencer. Rami Abdelrahman, programme coordinator for the Sweden Textile Water Initiative – a sector wide collaboration between the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) and more than 30 Swedish brands. It aims to help Swedish companies understand and address water risk in their supply chains. STWI has its own guidelines for the sustainable use of water, energy and chemicals in manufacturing processes, and has piloted one project in India. Stuart Harker, managing director of the Business Environmental Performance Initiative (BEPI), a business-driven service for retailers, importers and brands. BEPI provides a practical framework that can support all product sectors to reduce their environmental impact, business risks and costs through improved environmental practices. Marieke Weerdesteijn, senior programme manager at NGO Solidaridad. Within the sustainable cotton and textiles team, Marieke’s core focus is on sustainable wet processing (dyeing and finishing) in Bangladesh and China. This includes the Bangladesh Water PaCT: Partnership for Cleaner textiles. How to join The live chat is completely text based and will take place on this page in the comments section below, kicking off on Tuesday 2 September, 1pm BST. You can submit any questions in advance by tweeting them to @GuardianSustBiz using #askGSB or using the form below and we’ll put them to the panel on the day. Read more stories like this: The great salty mess: pollution threatens US fresh water resources ‘Green’ is a wash in the hospitality industry: could we be doing more? Advertisement Feature: H&M and WWF partner for responsible water stewardship in fashion industry The fashion hub is funded by H&M. All content is editorially independent except for pieces labelled advertisement feature. Find out more here. Join the community of sustainability professionals and experts. Become a GSB member to get more stories like this direct to your inbox | ['sustainable-business/fashion', 'sustainable-business/sustainable-fashion-blog', 'fashion/fashion', 'environment/environment', 'sustainable-business/sustainable-business', 'environment/water', 'sustainable-business/series/q-and-a', 'sustainable-business/resource-efficiency', 'sustainable-business/waste-and-recycling', 'business/corporate-governance', 'environment/corporatesocialresponsibility', 'type/article', 'profile/hannah-gould'] | environment/corporatesocialresponsibility | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2014-08-26T17:37:14Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
sport/2022/mar/07/menna-fitzpatrick-neil-simpson-add-two-more-british-winter-paralympics-medals | Fitzpatrick and Simpson add two more Winter Paralympics medals for GB | Great Britain have won another two medals in the 2022 Beijing Winter Paralympics. In difficult conditions, Menna Fitzpatrick claimed bronze in the women’s super combined visually impaired class, adding to the silver that she won with guide Gary Smith in the Super-G on Sunday, while Neil Simpson followed up his earlier gold with a third place of his own. Fitzpatrick now has six Paralympic medals. Afterwards she said: “We left ourselves a bit of work to do in slalom and the plan paid off, of going out there and putting down a pretty decent run, so we are super, super happy.” Ahead of Fitzpatrick, Slovakia’s Henrieta Farkasova won her 11th Paralympics gold, with Zhu Daqing of China taking silver as the hosts continued to dominate the medal table. Britain’s Millie Knight just missed out on the medals in fourth place. The slalom stage of Monday’s combined events was delayed by half an hour, before a series of crashes affected favourites across the events, including in the men’s super combined visually impaired class, where Simpson, guided by his brother Andrew, finished with a bronze medal. “Coming into the slalom we knew we had to charge, and we had nothing to lose going in to the second run,” said 19-year-old Neil. “I skied a lot of slalom when I was younger as you have no choice growing up in Scotland and it’s something I really enjoy. I was so tired after the gold medal yesterday I just had some food and went to bed so we were in the right mindset today.” A crash by leader Hyacinthe Deleplace of France on the final slalom run of the competition left Italy’s Giacomo Bertagnolli the winner and the British brothers in third. Canada’s three-times defending champion Brian McKeever won the gruelling long-distance cross-country visually impaired event again to claim the 14th Winter Paralympic gold medal of a glittering career. It is the 42-year-old’s sixth appearance at a Winter Paralympics. Ukraine’s Oksana Shyshkova won her second gold of these Games with victory in the women’s equivalent. She finished almost a minute ahead of the rest of the competitors. Natalie Wilkie of Canada made it a double celebration for the Canadians with gold in the women’s cross-country standing long-distance. France’s Cécile Hernandez had to win a court battle over her classification to compete in Beijing after the International Paralympic Committee removed her LL1 class from these Games, and she was rewarded with a gold medal in the LL2 snowboard cross. China took a clean sweep of the podium in the men’s SB-UL event, with Ji Lijia taking gold. Matti Suur-Hamari of Finland, the World and Paralympic champion, defended his men’s SB-LL2 title won in Pyeongchang. Britain’s wheelchair curlers won their first match of the day, a 15-1 rout of Switzerland in the morning session at the Beijing National Aquatics Centre, but a 7-3 defeat by Slovakia later on means they now have two wins and two losses, and sit joint-fifth in the round robin table alongside Estonia and Slovakia. Only the top four teams progress in the tournament. Great Britain face Estonia and Sweden in Tuesday’s matches. China have now won seven golds, eight silver and 10 bronze medals in the first three days of sport. The combined total of 25 medals is more than double that of Canada, who have taken 12 medals so far and are the only other country to have racked up a double-figures tally. Ukraine continue to sit second in the medal table. Xi Jinping, the Chinese President, has thanked the International Olympic Committee and its president, Thomas Bach, for their role in awarding and helping host the Games, saying China has delivered on its promise of a “simple, safe and splendid” event. The IOC was widely criticised for giving China the right to host given its human rights record, and in the wake of the treatment of the tennis player Peng Shuai. The US and UK were among nations who staged a diplomatic boycott of last month’s Winter Olympics. | ['sport/winter-paralympics-2022', 'sport/paralympics', 'sport/disability-sport', 'sport/sport', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/martin-belam', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/sport', 'theguardian/sport/news', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-sport'] | sport/winter-paralympics-2022 | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2022-03-07T08:19:09Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
business/2009/nov/12/delay-government-loan-sheffield-forgemasters | European regulations threaten crucial £140m government loan | European rules on state aid are delaying the completion of a crucial £140m government loan, which would allow British manufacturers to help build new nuclear reactors at home and abroad. Lord Mandelson's business department is hoping Sheffield Forgemasters International will have the funding by Christmas. But, in the week that the government announced plans to build 10 new nuclear power stations in the UK in the next ten years, unions fear the timetable could slip into next year with damaging consequences for the company. Dougie Rooney, Unite's energy officer, warned further delays could result in Sheffield Forgemasters losing a key contract to overseas competitors to make components for the first batch of new reactors planned for the UK. The company is one of only three in the world able to make the special forgings for new reactors. Mandelson is keen for the company – and other British manufacturers – to supply as many components for the industry as possible, particularly in the UK. The £140m loan would allow Sheffield Forgemasters, whose origins go back to the seventeenth century, to build a 15,000-tonne press to make the large forgings in short supply globally – though it is under pressure to secure funding soon. The joint venture, between E.ON and RWE npower, will choose in the first quarter next year whether to order reactors from Westinghouse, which would soon afterwards place an order for the forgings. If the £140m loan continues to be delayed, Westinghouse would be forced to buy the forgings for its first batch of reactors, planned for the UK, from overseas. Although ministers have agreed in principle a loan in the region of £140m, the fear of breaching EU competition rules is making the process more drawn-out than expected. Mandelson's former role as an EU trade commissioner makes the process particularly sensitive. But British companies are perplexed why the UK seems determined to obey the letter of EU competition law when much of the nuclear industry in Europe is controlled, and supported, by the state. Today, Richard Caborn, the Labour MP for Sheffield Central, urged the government to set up a "low carbon energy launch fund" within the £1bn National Investment Corporation unveiled by Gordon Brown in September. In a speech to the British Metallurgical Plant Constructors Association, he said that a fund aimed at supporting start-up companies or projects such as Sheffield Forgemasters' new press would help the UK get round these EU competition laws. "Financial markets are not geared up to providing the medium- and long-term investment needed for projects like this," he told the Guardian. The government and Sheffield Forgemasters declined to comment about the detail of their discussions. Peter Birtles, director at Sheffield Forgemasters, said: "Our request for funding support is under active discussion between the government and the company and we remain optimistic for a favourable outcome." | ['business/business', 'environment/nuclearpower', 'world/eu', 'politics/tradeunions', 'uk/uk', 'world/world', 'politics/peter-mandelson', 'tone/news', 'uk/sheffield', 'world/europe-news', 'type/article', 'profile/timwebb', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/financial3'] | environment/nuclearpower | ENERGY | 2009-11-12T19:12:22Z | true | ENERGY |
uk/1999/feb/16/3 | Weatherwatch | Heavy rain, causing floods, and heavy snow giving avalanches have been very much in the news during the past week. A rapidly deepening, then slow moving, area of low pressure across Switzerland and Austria caused some exceptionally high snowfall totals during the week. Cold air from Scandinavia mixed with warm air off the Mediterranean gave Saentis, Switzerland a massive 5.7m covering by Friday - that's nearly 19 feet. Many places in the Alps had 6 or 7 feet of snow this week, and not surprisingly this triggered the devastating avalanches. In Australia, of course, it's summer at the moment, but tropical cyclones have given a very wet week to the eastern side of Australia. In the 36 hours ending on Tuesday, 141mm of rain fell at Brisbane, close to the monthly average of 160mm, from the remains of one tropical storm. The city may see some more showers from the remains of tropical storm Rona. In 6 hours on Friday, a huge 285mm of rain fell on Mareeba, not far from Cairns in Northern Queensland, closing on the February average of 399mm. In the US this week, there were some huge contrasts in temperature as cold air in the west tried to replace the warmer air in the east. Salt Lake City saw its maximum fall from 17C on Tuesday, to 2C, when the February average is 5C. Chicago peaked at 21C on Thursday, a huge 19.5 degrees above normal. • Crown copyright 1999 | ['uk/uk', 'news/series/weatherwatch', 'type/article'] | news/series/weatherwatch | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 1999-02-16T02:24:00Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
cities/2015/aug/26/new-orleans-resilience-roadmap-climate-social-issues | New Orleans launches resilience roadmap to tackle climate and social challenges | In the week that marks the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans officials have launched a comprehensive “resilience strategy” aiming to secure the city’s future. As well as seeking ways for the city to both prevent and survive more climate-related catastrophes, it treats social challenges such as poverty, racial inequality and crime as disasters that must be addressed if New Orleans is to become truly “resilient”. In the strategy’s parlance, it tackles both “shocks” and “stresses”. Resilient New Orleans is a joint effort between the city and the Rockefeller Foundation’s 100 Resilient Cities initiative, which provides money and technical support for urban areas facing threats to their long-term prosperity. Conceived as a roadmap that highlights priority areas and seeks to close gaps in existing plans, the strategy proposes 41 actions designed to make the city more equitable, adaptable and prosperous, from promoting energy efficiency to enlarging the public transportation network to establishing personal emergency savings accounts to boosting resources to combat the erosion of Louisiana’s coastal wetlands, which are a vital line of defence against severe weather. While numerous plans and ideas to improve conditions have been proposed in the wake of Katrina, which killed some 1,000 people in Louisiana and displaced hundreds of thousands when levees failed and flooded 80% of New Orleans, officials insisted that the wide-ranging blueprint has the means to succeed. “People in New Orleans are tired of planning and this strategy is a means to take action,” said Jeff Hebert, the city’s chief resilience officer, at the launch on Tuesday. A statement said that “partners in the private and philanthropic sector will provide greater than $1m in immediate tools and services” to begin implementing the strategy, and more funds will be sought from a variety of sources. “All of the actions have pretty clear ownership and there’s been a lot of work already to identify who the partners are who will support the actions,” said Michael Berkowitz, the 100 Resilient Cities president. “Cities that have that catalyst for change, the ones that have suffered through severe events or have really clear risk profiles, those cities sometimes do the most innovative work because the mayor doesn’t have to convince anyone that business as usual’s not going to work. Everybody in the city describes time as ‘before Katrina’ and ‘after Katrina’.” The mayor of New Orleans, Mitch Landrieu, said the city is in negotiations with FEMA, the federal emergency management agency, about how to proceed with the reconstruction of its water and drainage system. In an example of how the project seeks to foster interconnectedness, Landrieu said he hoped the overhaul would provide employment and training opportunities for many of the city’s jobless. “Everything we do now has a resilience lens on it,” he said. The 90-page strategy (PDF) was developed over nine months and sought input from members of the local community. One, Jeffrey Schwartz, is the executive director of Broad Community Connections, an organisation aiming to revitalise one of the city’s most historic and busy thoroughfares. “New Orleans has horrible rates of obesity and diabetes; that is in part because we suffer from not having enough fresh food access and access to healthcare,” Schwartz said. He said that one of the group’s aims is to “overlay real-estate development with programming” - not installing business tenants who are able to pay the highest rents, but ones who best meet local needs. The strategy calls for leveraging resources for coastal projects – for example, by using money from the BP oil spill settlement – as well as an outreach campaign to improve public awareness of environmental issues. It also stresses the importance of implementing projects that will help urban areas live with stormwater, not simply keep it out. A microgrid project is planned that will enhance the city’s backup electricity generation and mitigate the effects of outages, which could be vital in keeping essential services running in the event of another hurricane. Another suggestion is to put solar panels on New Orleans’ city hall. “If you’re going to live in a coastal city, you have to speed up your ability to respond. It’s not just about building to prevent a disaster, it’s got to be about the response and the comeback after a disaster,” said David Muth, director of the Gulf Restoration Programme at the National Wildlife Federation. Muth said the rebuilt levees ($14.5bn has been spent on upgrades to the flood defence system since Katrina) plus a recent influx of new residents who were not in the city during the 2005 storm risked breeding a sense of complacency that is dangerous given the worsening effects of climate change on the region. On average, the Louisiana coast is losing wetlands at the rate of a football field every hour: “Deltas are not static … the sea has been winning for 300 years and that victory has accelerated over the past 100 years,” Muth said. “The cost of prevention is tiny compared to the cost of rebuilding and eventually having to move much of the city’s infrastructure because we can’t hang on to it where it is … We’ve had a series of storms that really bring home the message: ‘Guys, we’re way more vulnerable than we thought.’” As part of the strategy, a “resilience center” will open in New Orleans to serve as a resource and training facility for cities around the world, encouraging the sharing of ideas and best practices. “What makes [the strategy] so impressive is that it’s so fully integrated,” said Judith Rodin, president of the Rockefeller Foundation. “It really is looking at the physical infrastructure, both natural and built, and linking it to economic and social resilience. For New Orleans to really recover and for most cities around the world to become truly resilient, the three domains – physical, economic and social – need to be tightly interwoven, and this really does do that.” Follow Guardian Cities on Twitter and Facebook and join the discussion | ['cities/cities', 'cities/series/resilient-cities', 'us-news/series/hurricane-katrina-10-years-on', 'us-news/hurricane-katrina', 'environment/environment', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'us-news/us-news', 'world/world', 'us-news/new-orleans', 'type/article', 'profile/tom-dart'] | us-news/hurricane-katrina | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2015-08-26T09:26:14Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
uk/2008/dec/29/crayfish-conservation | Breeding programme boosts numbers of endangered crayfish species | A breeding programme has boosted the numbers of an endangered species of British crayfish. The white-clawed crayfish is threatened by a deadly "crayfish plague" and competition from a brash American cousin that was introduced to the country in the late 1970s. The conservation project, launched in 2003 in the Yorkshire Dales, has produced 300 juveniles this year – making it the UK's most successful breeding programme for the native species. The white-clawed crayfish (Austropotamobius pallipes) was once common in upland rivers and streams, favouring hard-water areas in particular. But its numbers have been devastated by a virulent plague caused by a fungus that was almost certainly brought to this country by the North American signal crayfish – a species that has been farmed in the UK for the seafood trade since the late 1970s. Now the International Union for the Conservation of Nature's Red List of endangered species rates the native white-clawed crayfish as vulnerable to extinction – just two categories away from being critically endangered. The threat from the larger and more aggressive North American signal crayfish (Pacifastacus leniusculus) is particularly acute because, apart from spreading disease, it is able to breed faster and preys on the smaller native species. Crayfish plague has taken hold quickly because it can be spread by water, fish or equipment that has been in contact with the signal crayfish. In Northern Ireland, where there are no crayfish farms, the crayfish plague is unknown. The Yorkshire project, run by Natural England and the Environment Agency, began by attempting to ringfence populations of the British crayfish. It has now moved on to developing techniques for captive breeding and rearing that allow more than 60% of offspring to survive – many more than would reach breeding age in the wild. "We are at a critical stage in protecting our remaining native crayfish populations and our work in the Yorkshire Dales is at the forefront of conserving this endangered species. It has required a lot of hard work but the results demonstrate just how successful we have been in rearing native white-clawed crayfish. We now need to build on this success," said Neil Handy, fisheries officer with the Environment Agency, who is responsible for managing the facility. "The news that white-clawed crayfish are breeding in increasing numbers in the Yorkshire Dales is extremely encouraging and shows that targeted conservation work can make a real impact. The species has been all but wiped out following the introduction of its American cousin, but the success of this project gives grounds for hoping that extinction is by no means inevitable," said Dr Helen Phillips, the chief executive of Natural England. | ['environment/conservation', 'environment/wildlife', 'science/science', 'environment/biodiversity', 'science/zoology', 'uk/uk', 'tone/news', 'science/biology', 'science/microbiology', 'type/article', 'profile/jamesranderson'] | environment/biodiversity | BIODIVERSITY | 2008-12-29T14:17:55Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
world/2017/oct/03/jellyfish-surprise-new-zealand-chef-stirs-debate-with-menu-of-imported-stingers | Jellyfish surprise: New Zealand chef stirs debate with menu of imported stingers | An environmentally minded New Zealand chef is selling hundreds of plates of imported jellyfish a month after becoming frustrated that the seafood is being wasted in his homeland. Mass jellyfish landings are an increasingly common occurrence in New Zealand, with scientists saying warming sea temperatures, a decline in traditional predators such as tuna and nutrient-rich oceans are contributing to the blooms. Jacob Brown, an award-winning chef from Wellington’s The Larder first started experimenting with jellyfish a couple of years ago, and says the crunchy, briny tasting seafood has ballooned in popularity as diners look for more sustainable proteins in their meals. Brown now sells around 150 jellyfish meals a week to his customers, and would like to expand his menu to include local possums, wasps, ants and wild Canadian geese. “Jellyfish is a real issue over here and when I started cooking with it I realised it was also a really good product,” says Brown. “I use it as a secondary seafood to complement other seafoods. The human race is overfishing our oceans and we have an abundance of jellyfish and I think we should be eating them rather than just eating the premium fish which are endangered, such as tuna.” Dr Lisa-ann Gershwin, director of the Australian Marine Stinger Advisory Services said New Zealand can expect increasing numbers of jellyfish invading the coastline as prime breeding conditions in the oceans help them grow in “super abundance”. Brown’s jellyfish dishes have appeared on the menu in many guises and been paired with local food such as whitebait, pork, chicken and in omelettes. Because of Ministry for Primary Industries restrictions Brown is unable to serve local jellyfish at his restuarant, and has to import it from South Korea, although he is allowed to harvest and cook it for his own family. Brown says the MPI restrictions are “crazy” and says on some days he is barely able to swim in Wellington harbour due to the ocean being clogged with jellyfish. “It is a very mild flavour, it doesn’t really have a lot of flavour of its own so it is more of a textural thing,” said Brown, of the jellyfish’s epicurean appeal. “Some people go ‘yuck, no way’ and those are the people I really want to target and change their perception. I think it is crazy and small-minded that we are happy to eat a cow that is in some respects quite a dirty animal, but we have this really clean protein that just flows through the ocean like a sea-plant. To me it makes more sense to be eating jellyfish than live animals.” A jellyfish omellete costs NZ$20 at Brown’s restuarant with around a quarter of his diners choosing the dish everyday. “It is getting more and more popular, people are intrigued, it is probably only a matter of time till it goes on Masterchef and then everybody will be eating it,” says Brown. Booming jellyfish populations have begun to be reported worldwide, including in Britain, the Mediterranean and Japan, with experts suggesting the increase in population numbers is strongly linked to human activities. How to cook with Jellyfish According to Brown most jellyfish tend to taste the same, but his restaurant uses moon and cannonball jellyfish for its dishes. Brown says to be careful in what jellyfish you harvest because of their stinging tentacles, but if you secure a safe and edible jellyfish, he advises blanching it three to four times between boiling and iced water, and then slicing it very thinly. Substituting it into any dish where cucumber is called for is a safe bet, and it works well in salads and Asian dishes. | ['world/newzealand', 'food/seafood', 'environment/marine-life', 'environment/environment', 'food/restaurants', 'world/asia-pacific', 'world/south-korea', 'food/food', 'lifeandstyle/lifeandstyle', 'environment/wildlife', 'world/world', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/eleanor-de-jong', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-foreign'] | environment/marine-life | BIODIVERSITY | 2017-10-03T03:32:23Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
environment/2023/nov/30/sunak-accused-of-sending-wrong-signals-on-climate-crisis-as-he-heads-to-cop28 | Sunak accused of sending wrong signals on climate crisis as he heads to Cop28 | Rishi Sunak has been accused of sending out the wrong signals on tackling the climate emergency as he heads to the Cop28 summit in Dubai after saying his revised net zero targets show he is “not in hock to the ideological zealots”. The prime minister will allocate about £1.6bn of climate finance during the summit and claim that the UK will exceed its target of spending £11.6bn over the five years to 2026. But he faces accusations from charities and non-governmental organisations that the UK is on track to meet the target only by changing the way it calculates climate aid – and otherwise would fall far short of the total. Before the summit, Sunak also chose to emphasise his “pragmatic” approach to tackling the climate crisis, having two months ago decided to water down his net zero targets on phasing out petrol cars and gas boilers. “The transition to net zero should make us all safer and better off,” he said on Thursday. “It must benefit, not burden, ordinary families. The UK has led the way in taking pragmatic, long-term decisions at home – and at Cop28 we will lead international efforts to protect the world’s forests, turbocharge renewable energy and leverage the full weight of private finance.” He also claimed that ambitious pledges to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees were enough and “the time for pledges is now over – this is the era for action”. Sunak said: “I’m not in hock to ideological zealots on this topic. Of course we’re going to get to net zero, of course it’s important, but we can do that in a sensible way that saves people money and doesn’t burden them with extra costs.” Sunak’s approach was criticised by Keir Starmer, who will also attend the summit. The Labour leader told investors on Thursday that Sunak’s government was “sending the wrong signals when it comes to net zero”. He said: “While the Conservatives use it to appease their party and sow political division, my Labour government will harness it in the national interest, to turbo-charge growth” Sunak’s decision to revise his climate targets was partly aimed at drawing a dividing line with Labour, which has promised to spend £28bn a year on kickstarting a green industrial revolution. Labour has also said it would strengthen requirements for companies to report on their green measures in an effort to mobilise private finance to support ways to cut emissions. Starmer is meeting financiers at the summit in Dubai as he seeks to step up his international profile before the general election expected next year, with Sunak also vying for attention on the world stage. Before the summit, Sunak said the UK was a “world leader when it comes to climate”, claiming the statistics proved it was ahead of other countries on meeting its commitments. No 10 said the prime minister was announcing £1.6bn of climate finance for projects, of which almost £900m, including £465m for forests, was new funding separate to the £11.6bn spending target for the years 2022 to 2026. The UK is also contributing about £60m to a global loss and damage fund unveiled in Dubai, which ActionAid criticised as a “derisory offer to millions of people facing climate catastrophe”. The government is already facing claims that it has changed the definition of international climate finance to hit its £11.6bn target. More than 70 UK civil society organisations wrote to Sunak in October to challenge the new definition, with Climate Action Network UK saying “changing the goalposts is not a credible or appropriate way for the UK to meet its international commitments”. Rich countries have long promised to provide finance – in the form of loans or cash – to help poor countries cut greenhouse gas emissions and cope with the impacts of the climate crisis. However, leaks in the summer showed UK ministers were warned they were massively off track to meet their targets and could do so only by raiding the aid budget. The government insists its change in the definition is “clarification” of how the money is spent, rather than fiddling the figures. Sunak is expected to attend the opening ceremony at Cop28, which will be addressed by King Charles, as well as events on climate finance, climate adaptation and a new Just Energy Transition Partnership with Vietnam. He will also hold bilateral meetings with world leaders, with Gaza and the wider Middle East on the agenda. | ['environment/cop28', 'politics/rishi-sunak', 'global-development/climate-finance', 'uk/uk', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/rowena-mason', 'profile/aletha-adu', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-home-news'] | environment/cop28 | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2023-11-30T22:30:05Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
politics/2019/sep/22/boris-johnson-unveils-12bn-for-climate-and-endangered-species | Boris Johnson unveils £1.2bn for climate and endangered species | Boris Johnson has unveiled a combined £1.2bn in funding for new efforts to tackle the climate emergency and protect endangered species as he prepares to attend the annual gathering of world leaders at the United Nations in New York. While at the UN general assembly, the prime minister will use a speech to announce £1bn in aid money for UK inventors to seek funding for high-tech initiatives connected to areas such as renewable energy and lower levels of pollutants. He will separately announce a £220m fund to tackle the erosion of biodiversity, focusing on desperately endangered species such as the black rhino and Sumatran tiger. Downing Street hopes Johnson’s environment speech will be the highlight of a trip that is likely to be dominated by questions about Brexit, but the plans prompted a withering response from Greenpeace, which said it amounted to “a flop” in terms of world leadership on the issue and fell well short of the vision required.` The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) charity, which will be hosting the UN event at which Johnson will announce the biodiversity fund, praised the plan but warned that focusing only on technological solutions for the climate emergency would not be sufficient. The £1bn innovation fund is billed as seeking “the latest cutting-edge tech” in areas such as sustainable electricity supplies for developing countries, improved battery technology and ways for heavily polluting industries such as steel and cement to reduce emissions. Coming from the aid budget, the fund is named after Hertha Ayrton, a pioneering Victorian-era physicist and engineer, who was also a passionate suffragette and whose daughter, Barbara Ayrton-Gould, was a Labour MP at the time of the Attlee government. Announcing the new biodiversity fund with what is described as an initial £220m in funding, Johnson was expected to warn that species and habitats were vanishing faster than at any other time in history. The money will be targeted at better law enforcement to protect environments, prevent poaching and hamper the trade in illegal wildlife goods. Speaking before the UN meeting, to which he was heading on Sunday, Johnson said he had “always been deeply optimistic about the potential of technology to make the world a better place”. He said: “If we get this right, future generations will look back on climate change as a problem that we solved by determined global action and the prowess of technology.” On biodiversity, he said: “It is a privilege to share our planet with such majestic beasts as the African elephant, the black rhino and the beautiful pangolin. We cannot just sit back and watch as priceless endangered species are wiped off the face of the earth by our own carelessness and criminality.” Rebecca Newsom from Greenpeace UK said: “This is the first big test of Boris Johnson’s climate and environmental leadership on the world stage, and he’s heading for a flop. “The collection of pet projects announced here falls desperately short of the radical action and bold vision demanded only last week by millions of kids and grownups in the largest climate protest in history.” On protecting wildlife, Newsom said the UK would have a much bigger impact “if it paused trade talks with Brazil until the Amazon is protected while committing to putting environmental and human rights protections at the heart of all future trade deals”. Mike Barrett from WWF UK praised the biodiversity fund and said the innovation money was “an important acknowledgment of the scale of the global crisis”. But he added: “Investment in technology is welcome but the government must back this up with trade policies that actively combat climate change and reduce deforestation.” In New York, Johnson is set to hold a series of talks likely to touch on Brexit, including with Donald Tusk, Emmanuel Macron, Angela Merkel, and Ireland’s Leo Varadkar. Other bilateral meetings include Donald Trump; the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi; the New Zealand PM, Jacinda Ardern and Egypt’s President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi. | ['politics/boris-johnson', 'world/unitednations', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'environment/wildlife', 'environment/biodiversity', 'politics/politics', 'environment/environment', 'environment/conservation', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/peterwalker', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/uk-home-news'] | environment/biodiversity | BIODIVERSITY | 2019-09-22T21:30:11Z | true | BIODIVERSITY |
commentisfree/2015/nov/13/climate-change-melting-greenland-glacier-warning | Melting glacier? Yawn. Climate change is boring, worthy – and terrifying | Owen Jones | It’s the existential threat to our species, and it bores us to tears. Admit it. You think the consequences of human-driven climate change are terrifying, but it seems too abstract, too technical and too long term. A recent poll in the US found that, while most Americans accepted that the climate was indeed changing, less than a quarter admitted to be either extremely or very worried about it. So the latest scientific reports should have the effect of grabbing us by the lapels and admonishing us for not taking it seriously enough. A whopping big glacier in Greenland is disintegrating, and fast. Incredibly, 4.5bn tonnes of ice is being lost from this glacier every single year. If it were to disappear, it alone could raise the Earth’s sea levels by half a metre. Still, my fear is we will occasionally glance at these stories, grimace a bit, and then move on to the latest snaps of Kate Middleton. Perhaps a more effective tool is a website that looks at how major cities will look after rising temperatures have done their thing. Spoiler: who fancies a swim outside the New York Stock Exchange? The truth is climate change has already given us ever more extreme weather, including intense heatwaves and rain storms. New research suggests that such heatwaves could render much of the Gulf uninhabitable without drastic measures. The singer Charlotte Church was mocked when, on Question Time earlier this year, she suggested that climate change had fuelled the Syrian war. But that is indeed what scientists themselves suggest could have happened, a huge drought having driven rural workers into Syrian cities. This week, the US secretary of state, John Kerry, also suggested that climate change could have helped fuel conflict in both Syria and Nigeria. Climate change is real, but for many of us it remains a subject to be dropped into “worthy but dull, can someone else sort it out” box. That’s why linking it to issues that relate to people’s everyday lives is so important. Germany has led the way with industrial activism to promote renewable energy industries that provide skilled jobs. Insulating homes and businesses will also create jobs and tackle fuel poverty, as well as tackling climate change. Jobs, growth and living standards: this is surely what climate change has to be linked to if it is to become a compelling issue. Sure, huge damage has already been done, and glaciers will continue to melt. But radical global measures can help mitigate the damage. A failure to act will mean catastrophe. A single glacier losing 4.5bn tonnes of ice a year. That shook me up, and it should shake you up, too. | ['commentisfree/series/first-thoughts', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'commentisfree/commentisfree', 'tone/comment', 'environment/environment', 'environment/drought', 'environment/water', 'world/syria', 'world/middleeast', 'world/world', 'world/natural-disasters', 'science/scienceofclimatechange', 'environment/glaciers', 'environment/poles', 'world/greenland', 'type/article', 'profile/owen-jones'] | environment/poles | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2015-11-13T12:11:44Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
global-development/2015/oct/19/hunger-nutrition-climate-change-smallholder-farmers-eu | Tackling climate change is the key to producing enough nutritious food to beat hunger | Neven Mimica and Phil Hogan | With hopes high that a new global climate change agreement will be signed at the UN’s COP21 talks in Paris, the world faces a difficult question. How do we feed and nourish an increasing number of people while ensuring that expanded agricultural production becomes more sustainable, and does not put more strain on the world’s natural resources? The balance is especially difficult to strike given that 70% of the world’s poor live in rural areas and, in developing countries, agriculture – particularly small-scale farming – is the main source of income and employment. But improving food security is critical: today, one in every nine people goes to bed hungry, while one in four children are undernourished. Ensuring greater food production alone is not enough. Since undernutrition is the principal cause of death for more than 3 million children each year, we need not just more food but also affordable, safe and nutritious food. Climate change is a key factor to be addressed, in Paris and beyond. There is strong scientific evidence that changing temperatures and rainfall patterns have a significant impact on crops. The EU actively promotes techniques that can reinforce the sustainability and productivity of farming. Measures aim to reduce exposure to climate change and avoid environmental degradation while simultaneously contributing to food security and better nutrition. Demand-driven agricultural research and innovation, benefiting small-scale farmers, are particularly important in this regard. Of course, several factors put food security at risk. Weak productivity, price volatility, growing populations, and limited access to markets all play a part. In recent weeks, the 2030 agenda has been adopted by the UN. Over the next 15 years, 17 global goals will drive our pursuit of a fairer and better world. Nutrition and food security will be among the core themes in this process. More than 60 developing countries have asked the EU to support their efforts to promote sustainable agriculture and food systems as a key area of our cooperation. Already a leading donor in food and nutrition security, the EU is ready to invest up to €8.8bn (£6.5bn) in this area between 2014 and 2020. The focus will be on small-scale farmers and undernourished children, as well as preparing the most vulnerable to cope better with food crises. For instance, the EU will support partner countries in their efforts to hit a 2025 target for reducing the number of children under five who suffer from stunting by 7 million. We have also pledged €3.5bn to improving nutrition between 2014 and 2020. We want to enhance the incomes of smallholder farmers, improve rural communities’ ability to withstand natural or manmade shocks by intensifying sustainable agriculture practices, and ensure food products are safe and nutritious. The EU’s strategy is to stimulate change within rural communities in order to achieve economic transition and, ultimately, sustainable transformation. As farming remains largely a private sector activity, and individual families of farmers or smallholders are the largest investors in developing countries’ agriculture, they should be central to this transformation. Developing a viable and vibrant agricultural sector presents a significant market opportunity for small and family farmers. Further integration into the agricultural economy offers rural and urban farming households, as well as agribusinesses, the possibility of earning a living, thus increasing wealth and prosperity. None of this will work unless we can ensure that agriculture and development policies actively contribute to achieving each other’s objectives. We are committed to making sure this happens. Neven Mimica is the EU commissioner for international cooperation and development; Phil Hogan is EU commissioner for agriculture | ['global-development/food-security', 'global-development/malnutrition', 'global-development/global-development', 'environment/cop-21-un-climate-change-conference-paris', 'environment/global-climate-talks', 'type/article', 'tone/comment', 'profile/neven-mimica'] | environment/cop-21-un-climate-change-conference-paris | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2015-10-19T06:00:12Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
environment/2019/nov/11/norways-equinor-must-change-environmental-plan-to-drill-in-great-australian-bight | Norway's Equinor must modify environmental plan to drill in Great Australian Bight | Norwegian energy company Equinor has been ordered to modify and resubmit an environmental plan to drill an oil exploration well in the Great Australian Bight. The company has exploration rights on a site about 370km off the South Australian coast and first submitted its environmental statement on the drilling proposal in April. After previously delaying a decision, the National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority (Nopsema) on Monday again called on the company to provide more information on the consultation it conducted and on the risks posed by oil spills. “The opportunity to modify and resubmit does not represent a refusal or rejection of the environment plan,” the regulator said. “This is a normal part of Nopsema’s environment plan assessment process.” Equinor has 21 days to respond and can ask for more time. It said it remained committed to drilling the exploratory well and to meeting all its regulatory requirements. “Based on the industry’s experience, we know Nopsema accepts only 10% of plans on first submission,” the company’s Australian manager, Jone Stangeland, said in a statement. “Equinor has always expected to work through an iterative process of resubmission before Nopsema accepts the environment plan. “We continue to engage with stakeholders and local communities regarding details of our plans.” South Australian senator and Greens environment spokesperson Sarah Hanson-Young said the Norwegian oil giant should “quit while it still can”. “There’s no safe way to drill in the Great Australian Bight, and South Australians, and Australians alike, will not give big oil a green light – not now, and not ever,” she said. “The company’s environment and safety plan has been rejected, after failing to deal with the risk of an oil spill, amongst other flaws. The environmental and economic risks are too high and there is no support in the community for turning our Bight into an oil field. “The ecological and environmental significance of the Bight is priceless. Thousands of fishing and tourism jobs rely on it. It must be protected, with World Heritage listing, not exploited for more dangerous fossil fuels, especially in this climate crisis.” Greenpeace and other environmental groups echoed the sentiment that the company should simply abandon the proposal. “This is the second time that Nopsema has asked Equinor to fill in the gaps in its drilling plan despite the company having more than two years and several attempts to get it right,” campaigner Nathaniel Pelle said. “The communities of the Bight, traditional owners and the thousands of people in the seafood and tourism industries whose livelihoods depend on healthy oceans will never accept oil drilling in the Bight. “Opposition today is greater than ever. Equinor’s senior management needs to accept this reality and abandon its reckless plans for good.” If approved Equinor expects to begin drilling its Stromlo-1 exploration well in the summer of 2020/21. In information released by Nopsema, the work is expected to take 60 days using a mobile offshore unit supported by three vessels and helicopters. The well will not be cored or production tested for hydrocarbons and will be permanently plugged. Equinor will then evaluate the results before considering whether to proceed with appraisal or further exploration. | ['environment/great-australian-bight', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'world/norway', 'australia-news/energy-australia', 'environment/energy', 'business/oil', 'environment/oil', 'business/oilandgascompanies', 'environment/oil-spills', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/australia-news'] | environment/oil | ENERGY | 2019-11-11T06:00:58Z | true | ENERGY |
media/2017/nov/10/data-firm-that-worked-for-trump-asked-wikileaks-to-share-hacked-emails | Data firm that worked for Trump asked WikiLeaks to share hacked emails | The chief executive of Cambridge Analytica has confirmed that the UK data research firm contacted Julian Assange to ask WikiLeaks to share hacked emails related to Hillary Clinton at about the time it started working for the Trump campaign in summer 2016. Speaking at a digital conference in Lisbon, Alexander Nix said he had read a newspaper report about WikiLeaks’ threat to publish a trove of hacked Democratic party emails, and said he asked his aides to approach Assange in early June 2016 to ask “if he might share that information with us”, according to remarks published by the Wall Street Journal. Assange, WikiLeaks’s founder, has already acknowledged the approach by Cambridge Analytica and said WikiLeaks rejected the request. In Lisbon, Nix reportedly agreed that the overture had been rebuffed. “We received a message back from them that he didn’t want to and wasn’t able to, and that was the end of the story,” Nix said at the Web Summit conference, according to the WSJ. He called the exchange “very benign”. However, the contacts between Cambridge Analytica and WikiLeaks are of interest to investigators looking into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin. The documents published by WikiLeaks in the summer of 2016 were later determined by US intelligence agencies to have been stolen by hackers working for Russian intelligence. According to the Journal, citing emails and unnamed sources, Cambridge Analytica had sent employees to the Trump digital campaign headquarters and was in the process of finalising a contract with the campaign in early June of last year, apparently around the time Nix said he made the approach to Assange. It is not suggested that Cambridge Analytica made the approach at the Trump campaign’s request. The Guardian has contacted Cambridge Analytica for comment. Representative Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House intelligence committee looking into possible Trump-Moscow collusion has said the committee had a “deep interest” in the relationship between Cambridge Analytica and WikiLeaks. In an interview at the Web Summit, Nix rejected any suggestion of collusion with Russia. “We did not work with Russia in this election, and moreover we would never work with a third-party state actor in another country’s campaign,” he said. Robert Mercer, a Trump mega-donor, and his daughter, Rebekah, are major investors in Cambridge Analytica and Steve Bannon was a vice-president of the company before joining the Trump campaign and becoming the president’s chief strategist in the White House. Cambridge Analytica’s website promises to help clients gain advantage over political opponents with its data analysts of US voter behaviour. It claims to hold up to 5,000 pieces of data on more than 230 million voters, to build a “psychographic” profile of targeted voters. The company was hired to become part of the digital campaign, which was overseen by Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and was paid $5.9m, according to the Federal Election Commission. | ['media/julian-assange', 'technology/hacking', 'us-news/hillary-clinton', 'us-news/us-news', 'media/wikileaks', 'media/media', 'technology/technology', 'world/world', 'uk/uk', 'type/article', 'profile/julianborger', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/us-news'] | technology/hacking | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE | 2017-11-10T23:08:54Z | true | UNRELATED_TO_CLIMATE |
world/2009/may/13/russia-security-strategy-energy-warning | Energy conflicts could bring military clashes, Russian security strategy warns | The growing struggle for the world's energy reserves could spill over into military clashes, according to a new Kremlin security strategy published today. The paper also identified US missile defence programmes as one of the main challenges facing the country, and named the Arctic as a new area for potential conflict, together with the Middle East, Central Asia and the Caspian Sea. "In a competition for resources, it can't be ruled out that military force could be used for resolving emerging problems," the document said, adding: "The existing balance of forces near the borders of the Russian Federation and its allies can be violated." Today's document reflects the sharp deterioration in relations between Russia and the west over the last decade. The Kremlin's last national security strategy was published in January 2000 shortly after Vladimir Putin took over as president, from an ailing Boris Yeltsin. Written against the backdrop of the Kremlin's brutal second war in Chechnya, that document identified terrorism as the main threat to the country's security, and sought to portray Moscow's struggle against Chechen separatists as part of the "war on terror". With Chechnya now largely pacified, Russia's strategic concerns have changed. Moscow's biggest fears appear to be the widening gap between the US and Russia's military capabilities and the sharpening global scramble for rapidly disappearing oil and gas. The document, which will form Russia's national security strategy until 2020, also warns of the threat posed to Russia by Nato. The paper says Moscow wants a "fully fledged strategic partnership" with Washington but is opposed to the US's plans to develop a missile defence system in central Europe. Ruben Sergeyev, a Moscow-based defence analyst, said: "This new doctrine makes clear that the main threat to Russia is the activities of western countries." He went on: "Russia is seriously concerned about the growing gap between the US and Russia in the military field, and about America's attempts to dwarf Russia's nuclear potential by creating new arms systems, placed close to Russia's borders and in space. It is also worried about the US's high-precision, long-range, non-nuclear weapons." Barack Obama has vowed to reset relations with Moscow, which under his predecessor sunk to a record post-cold war low. Obama has promised to agree a new strategic arms reduction treaty with his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev, in July, when he arrives in Moscow on his first presidential visit. But there remain substantial differences between the two sides. The Kremlin remains vehemently opposed to Nato membership for Ukraine and pro-western Georgia, the scene of last summer's Russian invasion. For its part, the US rejects Medvedev's claim that Russia has "privileged interests" in neighbouring post-Soviet states. Today the paper's author, Nicholas Patrushev – a close ally of Putin and the former head of Russia's FSB spy agency – said it was "unacceptable" for the US to position "military infrastructure" on Russia's borders. He told Izvestiya the Kremlin would pursue a "rational and pragmatic foreign policy, which excluded costly confrontation". Intriguingly, Patrushev listed the Barents sea shelf and other Arctic regions as a new potential battleground, together with the territory once occupied by the Soviet Union, and Mongolia. Russia is one of several countries in the northern hemisphere that has laid claim to the polar region, and recently dispatched military units to the area. The Kremlin's ambitions have alarmed the five other countries with an Arctic coastline. Each country has exploitation rights over a 200-mile zone extending north from its borders, but Moscow is claiming a much greater chunk of the Arctic on the grounds that an underwater ridge runs between the North Pole and Russia's continental shelf. | ['world/world', 'world/russia', 'us-news/us-news', 'us-news/obama-administration', 'world/vladimir-putin', 'environment/energy', 'world/nato', 'world/georgia-news', 'world/ukraine', 'world/nuclear-weapons', 'environment/gas', 'world/arctic', 'tone/news', 'environment/oil', 'us-news/us-politics', 'world/europe-news', 'type/article', 'profile/lukeharding'] | environment/oil | ENERGY | 2009-05-13T15:40:39Z | true | ENERGY |
politics/2009/aug/18/met-police-climate-camp-twitter | Met police turns on charm ahead of climate protest | Scotland Yard is overhauling its tactics for policing protests by reaching out to activists in advance of its first big test since the controversy surrounding the handling of the G20 demonstrations. Senior officers have told representatives from Climate Camp, who are planning to construct a huge campsite next week at an undisclosed location in London, that they will be met with a "community-style" policing operation that will limit the use of surveillance units and stop-and-searches wherever possible. In a further effort to disseminate real-time information, the Metropolitan police has activated an account on Twitter, named CO11MetPolice after its public order unit codename, which will be used to send operational information to protesters taking part in the camp. Separately, a delegation from this year's Climate Camp will be taken to the Met's public order training centre on Thursday in Gravesend, Kent, where they have been asked to brief officers being drafted in from across the country to help police the event. Activists have also been assured that there will be no "ring of steel" around their camp and that sleep deprivation tactics, used when officers blasted loud music at campers at last year's Climate Camp at Kingsnorth power station in Kent, will not be repeated. The moves come after a succession of critical reports about the way police used controversial kettling tactics to confine protesters for hours. Outrage over the policing operation at the G20 – at which a newspaper vendor, Ian Tomlinson, died after being struck by an officer – prompted two parliamentary inquiries and a national review of public order tactics by the police inspectorate, all of which recommended police should try harder to facilitate peaceful protest. Climate Camp organisers planning the swoop on an undisclosed location in the capital next Wednesday say they are aiming to create a summer festival atmosphere, with wind turbines, vegetarian canteens, organic toilets and a TV studio powered by solar panels. They are divided over whether the Met's approaches constitute a genuine change in policy or a charm offensive designed to repair its battered reputation. The Met has hosted four meetings in an attempt to prepare for next week's protest. "The level of engagement from police has been there," said Francis Wright, a Climate Camp legal adviser who will brief police officers on Thursday. "We're pleased they have been forthcoming and have been making some of the right noises, but we have to see how they deliver on the day." She said one positive factor was the change in personnel. Commander Bob Broadhurst, who led the Met's G20 operation, will not be involved in policing the camp and will instead oversee the Notting Hill carnival, which takes place at the same time. His replacement as "gold" commander, Chief Superintendant Ian Thomas, told camp organisers he had handpicked his team, including his "silver" commander, Superintendent Julia Pendry, who led the cautious policing operation at the Tamil protests in Parliament Square. Pendry, who controls tactics for the camp, said she in turn chose her deputy, Chief Inspector Jane Connors, because she was "reasonable, sensible and able to communicate", sources at the meeting said. The fact that both are female has been perceived by some protesters as an attempt by the force to portray a less macho image. The Met has not ruled out the use of kettling, and it also remains concerned that, owing to the nature of the Climate Camp network, there is no identifiable hierarchy to negotiate with and says it is seriously hampered by not knowing the site of the gathering until the last minute. Protesters will gather at 10 locations around the capital at noon and be told the location by text message alerts. However, unlike previous camps at Kingsnorth, Heathrow airport and Drax power station, activists attending next week's camp are not planning a single co-ordinated mass action. Instead the campsite will be used to train volunteers for direct action in October, the target of which is being decided in an online poll. The camp is also likely to function as a base for autonomous green groups, such as Plane Stupid and Climate Rush, to launch protests against carbon-polluting targets across the city to which police will also be called. In a statement, the Met confirmed that it had hosted a meetings with Climate Camp representatives "to build a better dialogue between us" and had incorporated recommendations made in response to the G20. "We hope that through this dialogue we will be able to deliver a proportionate policing response to the camp. Some specific work has been undertaken to outline our policing strategy and tactics for the intended camp so their representatives can brief participants." Whether the Met's embrace of Twitter will prove a useful tool to police a demonstration has to be seen. Today just seven people had signed up to be followers of the Met's tweets on the social networking site, which have consisted of one message: "This is the official Metropolitan Police Twitter channel for #CO11." Kevin Smith, who is helping plan the camp, said: "Given the enormous loss of public confidence that the police suffered as a result of the draconian tactics they used at Kingsnorth last year and during the G20, it's no surprise that they would want to be seen mounting a charm offensive at the Climate Camp. "But we need to see if the authorities are going to take a more reasonable approach to the policing of protest in years to come when there might not be the massive public spotlight that there will be at the Climate Camp." | ['environment/climate-camp', 'uk/police', 'environment/activism', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'uk/uk', 'politics/politics', 'world/protest', 'world/world', 'environment/environment', 'uk/g20-police-assault-ian-tomlinson', 'world/g20', 'tone/news', 'type/article', 'profile/paullewis', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/topstories'] | environment/activism | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM | 2009-08-18T21:13:03Z | true | CLIMATE_ACTIVISM |
environment/2021/nov/21/cop27-is-in-egypt-next-year-but-will-anyone-be-allowed-to-protest | Cop27 is in Egypt next year … but will anyone be allowed to protest? | Concern is growing over plans to host a UN climate conference in Sharm el-Sheikh next year, in what will be a crucial summit if the world is to limit global heating to 1.5C. Several green experts and human rights activists have told the Observer they fear the ability of civil society groups to protest at the summit will be curtailed by Egypt’s authoritarian regime, reducing the pressure that can be brought to bear on leaders and ministers from the nearly 200 countries expected to take part. The Cop26 summit in Glasgow produced substantial progress on cutting greenhouse gas emissions, but the national carbon targets laid out there fell far short of the near-halving of emissions required to stay within 1.5C of pre-industrial levels. Recognising that, nations agreed to review their targets before the next annual climate “conference of the parties”, scheduled for next November. Egypt will host Cop27, in keeping with the expectation that the next location of the Cop should be in Africa. But the choice of Egypt has caused concern. Since coming to power in a military coup in 2013, Egyptian president Abdel Fatah al-Sisi has overseen the broadest and deepest crackdown on civil rights in Egypt’s modern history. Dissent has been outlawed: the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information estimates that 65,000 political prisoners are currently inside the country’s detention system, which has grown to at least 78 major detention centres in the past decade. Critics, from politicians to people posting comments on social media or even small groups protesting against a price rise on the Cairo metro, have been detained and imprisoned on terrorism charges. “I think that both Egypt’s political environment and its specific record of hosting conferences suggest that there’s a lot to be concerned about,” said Timothy Kaldas of the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy, a Washington thinktank. “Protests have been de facto outlawed while many people have been imprisoned for protesting without government permission, which is almost never granted.” Kaldas pointed to the intimidation, surveillance and in some cases physical harassment directed towards activists when they attended the 64th session held by the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights in Sharm el-Sheikh two years ago. “While hosting the Cop in the global south is vitally important, there are many better suited hosts, and the reality is that civil society from the global south who don’t have the protections that come with a passport are all the more vulnerable to harassment and intimidation than their western peers,” he said. An Egyptian environmental activist, who asked not to be named, said that Egypt hosting the next Cop removed the necessary pressure created by activists operating outside the conference’s “blue zone”, or sanctioned area. “That tension between civil society and governments has led to concessions and some progress,” they said. “Egypt hosting the Cop severely compromises that tension.” The activist said that the result of Egypt’s almost decade-long ban on street protests and suppression of political organising is that civil society actors and prospective protesters visiting Egypt for the Cop will be unable to liaise with local organisations, as it would risk endangering Egyptian activists. “It’s too dangerous for that to happen unless they are directly or indirectly sanctioned by the Egyptian government,” they said. But some international observers believe the location should give added impetus to the calls from vulnerable countries to major emerging economies, such as China, India and Russia, to toughen their emissions-cutting goals. Bob Ward, policy director at the Grantham Institute at the London School of Economics, said: “Egypt will be a particularly appropriate host for Cop27, which should be the African Cop. The issues of climate finance, adaptation, and loss and damage should all be high on the list of priorities, and all are of particular importance to Africa, which is home to many of the most vulnerable people to the impacts of climate change.” Bernice Lee, research director for futures at the Chatham House thinktank, also called for more emphasis on developing country concerns: “We must focus on the fact that this is a global event taking place not only in Egypt but in Africa, and we must see it as a golden opportunity to engage different African stakeholders on climate, as many of the promises made in Glasgow will be played out in developing country regions like Africa.” However, Paul Bledsoe, a former Clinton White House climate adviser now with the Progressive Policy Institute in Washington, questioned whether Egypt would bring enough pressure to bear on countries reluctant to raise their ambition on emissions cuts: “It remains to be seen whether Egypt will be willing to finesse greater climate ambitions from historic allies such as Russia and newer funders like China.” | ['environment/climate-crisis', 'law/human-rights', 'world/egypt', 'world/middleeast', 'world/africa', 'environment/cop26-glasgow-climate-change-conference-2021', 'world/protest', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'environment/cop27', 'profile/ruth-michaelson', 'profile/fiona-harvey', 'publication/theobserver', 'theobserver/news', 'theobserver/news/uknews', 'tracking/commissioningdesk/observer-main'] | environment/cop26-glasgow-climate-change-conference-2021 | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2021-11-21T08:15:06Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
commentisfree/2009/may/28/climate-change-grow-food | Hay festival: Digging for victory | Alastair Harper | Scrumping is our future. Andrew Simms has already assured us that our energy crisis can be solved by following Cuba's example. Today he told his Hay audience that when it comes to food, the system we know is over and we should expect a move closer to the world of Piers Plowman and Enid Blyton. It will be a land with a new patron saint in the form of Ebenezer Howard, where garden cities lead out into towns with their own currency, and all is fields where men and women wipe the soil from their hands each night to go comfort small, apple-stealing children who have never heard of the word "Tesco". Support for his vision came on the stage from Rosie Boycott and Rob Hopkins, author of the Transition Handbook, the joint fifth most-read book by MPs last summer, no less. Hopkins states that the working title of his book was "Small is Inevitable", and that was the message. These weren't suggestions for how we can save the world before the 91 months we have left is up, but simply an account of what will happen. It is all unavoidable and we had better develop a taste for parsnip pretty damn fast because the days of Monster Munch are numbered. Rosie Boycott talked about the modern horror of driving around the M25 in the middle of the night where she encountered the food vans circling our capital "like vultures" waiting to swoop in and resupply every shop and restaurant. This reliance on imported food has to end, she argued, as the oil supply runs dry. We would get nine meals from anarchy, a phrase coined to express the three days shops would be able to supply food if our transport system was ruptured. To stop this happening we will have to start growing our own, wherever we happen to live. This future London, this utopia, was drawn out in delicious detail. Brixton will find room to grow its own vegetables, which will then be sold across the road at the market, making the idea of a Camberwell Carrot disappointingly literal. Fruit would flourish on the pavement of Caledonian Road, scrumped by joy-filled healthy children who would presumably then proceed to playfully knock off a policeman's hat and go pick on some softies. At Hay, this sort of vision is as easy to sell as a tweed jacket and bumper pack of Alan Bennett diaries. The initiatives were all applauded, scrumping in particular apparently being the solution to all our ills. We shall all, town and country alike, dig for victory, selling the literal fruits of our labours for Wrexham rubles. Climate change will, in the end, have made life very pleasant indeed. Outside this audience I suspect it will be a less inspirational vision. The agrarian turning back of the clock may have to occur to some degree, though not to the extent the transition-town people perceive, and even this limited change won't be universally popular. Come the day the local McDonald's is turfed over for a nice blueberry bush the public will march. "You can take our land," they will shout from Parliament Square, "but you can never take our French fries!" Ed Miliband, despite being a public supporter of Andrew Simms and his new economic foundation, admitted a very odd argument last weekend when he said he can't be seen to be telling people they can't fly. He may as well have said that he can't tell people they have to age and wrinkle. It may be as hard to swallow as home-grown vegetable soup, but as Simms and co made clear, what they are offering isn't a request. It is a prediction. | ['environment/transition-towns', 'commentisfree/commentisfree', 'books/guardian-hay-festival', 'environment/green-politics', 'environment/food', 'environment/environment', 'environment/climate-crisis', 'world/world', 'business/fooddrinks', 'food/food', 'tone/comment', 'books/guardian-hay-festival-2009', 'type/article', 'profile/alastairharper'] | environment/green-politics | CLIMATE_POLICY | 2009-05-28T19:00:00Z | true | CLIMATE_POLICY |
news/2014/aug/31/weatherwatch-green-roofs | Weatherwatch: City growth forecast | The intense rainfall in London on August Bank holiday and recent heat waves have shown how extreme weather events could make life uncomfortable in cities as climate change takes hold. Hard surfaces are the problem. During high rainfall the water runs off so fast it overwhelms the drains, and in heat waves the warmth stored in stone, concrete and tarmac during the day is radiated back at night preventing the city cooling to a safe temperature. London is classed as a green city with 35.1 percent being built up and the remainder domestic gardens, parks or open water. The problem is that the centre has a far higher density of buildings, roads and paved areas, with only 18 per cent of the City of London being green space. Scientists say the solution is green roofs and grassed areas at ground level that during heavy rainfall act as shallow ponds or wide ditches to hold back storm water and filter out pollutants. In London's Victoria a scheme is creating 25 hectares of green roofs that will dramatically reduce storm water runoff, save £17,500 in energy bills a year and reduce local peak temperatures by 5C. Scientists say arm-twisting is required to make these ideas work because developers prefer short-term profit to long-term gains for their clients. They give examples of successful incentives. In the City of Copenhagen it is mandatory for all flat or gently sloping roofs to have vegetation. In Germany 13 cities reduce utility bills by 50 to 80 percent through the installation of green roofs. | ['news/series/weatherwatch', 'uk/weather', 'uk/uk', 'tone/features', 'type/article', 'profile/paulbrown', 'publication/theguardian', 'theguardian/mainsection', 'theguardian/mainsection/weather2'] | news/series/weatherwatch | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS | 2014-08-31T20:30:00Z | true | EXTREME_CLIMATE_IMPACTS |
environment/2015/aug/18/coalition-to-remove-green-groups-right-to-challenge-after-carmichael-setback | Coalition to restrict green groups' right to challenge after Carmichael setback | The government will remove the right of most environmental organisations to challenge developments under federal laws unless they can show they are “directly affected” – a direct response to the federal court decision this month on Adani’s Carmichael coalmine. Attorney general George Brandis took the plan to cabinet “under the line” on Monday and it was approved by the Coalition party room on Tuesday, where Tony Abbott said he wanted to use the issue to prove Labor was “torn between workers and greens”, whereas the Coalition was always on the side of the “hard-working and decent” workers. Brandis said the government would seek to repeal section 487 (2) of the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Act and “return to the common law”. The government says “vigilante” green groups have been “sabotaging” development, jobs and growth by “lawfare” – unfair and improper use of the courts. “Section 487 of the EPBC Act provides a red carpet for radical activists who have a political, but not a legal interest, in a development to use aggressive litigation tactics to disrupt and sabotage important projects,” Brandis said in a statement, promising to take the amendments to parliament by the end of the week. “The activists themselves have declared that that is their objective – to use the courts not for the proper purpose of resolving a dispute between citizens, but for a collateral political purpose of bringing developments to a standstill, and sacrificing the jobs of tens of thousands of Australians in the process,” Brandis said. “It is now for the federal Labor party to show that it cares more about jobs than inner-city greens.” Speaking during question time, Abbott said he wanted “the highest environmental standards to apply to investments in this country” but “some green groups are doing their best to sabotage investment and jobs.” He said the Carmichael mine was “good for jobs, good for global development and good for the environment because Australian coal is better than the alternatives”. Sections 487 and 488 extend the meaning of the term “person aggrieved” – and therefore able to take action – to include “individuals and organisations engaged in the protection, conservation or research into the environment within Australia and its territories”. Brandis said the current act allowed environmental groups based anywhere in the country to take legal action. Asked who would have standing to take legal action in the interests of an endangered species once the legislation had changed, he said that would be determined by the normal provisions of the common law. Abbott repeated the claim that the Adani mine would bring 10,000 jobs to Queensland even though the company’s own financial officer told a court this was not true and only 1,464 jobs would be created. He told his party room “green activists” were “sabotaging” projects that could be bringing growth and jobs to Australia. The approval of the $16bn Carmichael mine, to be located in Queensland’s Galilee Basin region, was set aside earlier this month following a legal challenge by the Mackay Conservation Group. The federal environment department said it would take six to eight weeks to reassess the project after it emerged the environment minister, Greg Hunt, had not properly considered the mine’s impact on two vulnerable species – the yakka skink and the ornamental snake. The Queensland Resources Council said the situation was “preposterous” and called on the government to “step up and close the loopholes” that allowed activists to stymie large mining projects. Initially the government was considering ways to make the environment minister immune from legal challenges if he or she ignored conservation advice provided by the department, but has now settled on restrictions to the groups that can bring legal action. Separate amendments to the EPBC Act have been held up in the Senate since last year. The government’s plan was on Tuesday attacked by farm groups protesting against coalmines and CSG wells. “If George Brandis has his way, local landcare groups like ours would have no right to challenge the federal approval of a devastating coalmine like Shenhua,” said Nicky Chirlian, a member of the Upper Mooki Landcare Group challenging the NSW approval of the Shenhua Watermark coalmine. “I won’t be directly affected by the Shenhua mine, but my regional environment and my entire community will be. If these changes go ahead, it will undermine basic justice and fairness for rural communities who are facing off against the biggest mining companies in the world” she said. “The Carmichael mine was rejected because the minister made a mistake. Now the government are using this error to cut Australians’ rights to protect the environment,” said Greenpeace chief executive David Ritter. “Australia’s environment laws aren’t very restrictive; they allow you to mine coal in prime farm land and are even failing to protect world heritage areas like the Great Barrier Reef … but today the government have announced that they are going to gut them to prevent local communities from objecting to mega mines like the Carmichael coal mine in Queensland. “They’re seeking to legislate special treatment and fast tracking for an industry in decline that causes significant environmental and economic damage,” Ritter said. The Minerals Council of Australia has attacked the Adani decision in similar terms to the government. “The gaming of the environmental approvals processes by a handful of protest groups now borders on the farcical. The inevitable dividend from continuing green sabotage is fewer jobs, lower real wages and lower living standards,” chief executive Brendan Pearson said. | ['environment/carmichael-coalmine', 'australia-news/queensland', 'australia-news/australia-news', 'environment/mining', 'environment/environment', 'australia-news/george-brandis', 'environment/coal', 'australia-news/australian-politics', 'australia-news/coalition', 'law/law-australia', 'business/adani-group', 'type/article', 'tone/news', 'profile/lenore-taylor'] | environment/mining | ENERGY | 2015-08-18T05:30:25Z | true | ENERGY |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.