The Guardian
Survival in Mozambique after cyclone Idai – in pictures
Millions of survivors face dire conditions after the tropical cyclone Idai smashed into Mozambique’s coast, unleashing hurricane-force wind and rain that flooded swathes of the country. More than two million people have been affected in Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi, where the storm killed 60 and displaced nearly a million people. Hundreds are still missing in Mozambique and Zimbabwe
Continue reading...Can the world quench China’s bottomless thirst for milk?
China’s leaders have championed milk as the emblem of a modern, affluent society – but their radical plan to triple the nation’s consumption will have a huge environmental cost.
By Felicity Lawrence
Beijing-based film-maker Jian Yi, now 43, clearly remembers the arrival of fresh milk in his life. It was an image of it, not the real thing. “It was the 1990s, and I first saw it in an advert on TV. The ad said explicitly that drinking milk would save the nation. It would make China stronger and better able to survive competition from other nations.”
Like most ethnic Han, who make up about 95% of the population, Jian was congenitally lactose-intolerant, meaning milk was hard to digest. His parents did not consume dairy at all when they were growing up; China’s economy was closed to the global market and its own production very limited. Throughout the Mao era, milk was in short supply and rationed to those deemed to have a special need: infants and the elderly, athletes and party cadres above a certain grade. Through most of the imperial dynasties until the 20th century, milk was generally shunned as the slightly disgusting food of the barbarian invaders. Foreigners brought cows to the port cities that had been ceded to them by the Chinese in the opium wars of the 19th century, and a few groups such as Mongolian pastoralists used milk that was fermented, but it was not part of the typical Chinese diet.
Continue reading...Australia's coal export bonanza at risk from China switch, says report
Despite record $278bn export earnings from resources sector, revenues are set to fall with coal under threat from Beijing rethink
Australia’s booming earnings from coal exports could be in jeopardy if China switches to more domestic supply and if port restrictions continue to favour competing exporters, a federal government report has warned.
The country’s energy and resources exports will rake in an extra $20bn to rise to $278bn this financial year, the report by the industry department said, creating a timely bonanza for the treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, to exploit in next week’s federal budget.
Continue reading...Pollutionwatch: time to dispel the myth of the inconvenient youth
Study debunks idea that parents find children’s concern about climate change irritating
In 2007, an article in the Wall Street Journal appeared with the headline “Inconvenient youth”. A pun on Al Gore’s film An Inconvenient Truth, it described parents being badgered by their children to drive less or install low energy lighting to help climate change. It even included tips and strategies for fed-up parents to deflect these suggestions. A new study challenges this narrative.
In 2015, a poster competition for Utah schools was launched to encourage teens to consider the air pollution implications of their driving privilege and to learn strategies to preserve air quality. Although the competition was directed at the teenagers, it soon became clear that they were talking to their parents and encouraging them to change behaviour too.
Continue reading...Deadly skin-eating fungal disease wipes out 90 amphibian species in 50 years
Study reveals extent of chytrid fungus and how devastating it has been for frog, toad and salamander species worldwide
A deadly disease that wiped out global populations of amphibians led to the decline of 500 species in the past 50 years, including 90 extinctions, scientists say.
A global research effort, led by the Australian National University, has for the first time quantified the worldwide impact of chytridiomycosis, or chytrid fungus, a fungal disease that eats away at the skin of amphibians.
Continue reading...Greenhouse gas emissions in UK fell 3% in 2018, official figures show
Pollution from energy sector continues to drop, while low-carbon generation rose to 53%
The UK’s greenhouse gas emissions fell 3% in 2018 as pollution from the energy sector continued to decrease, provisional government figures show.
Emissions of the gases that drive climate change have fallen for six years in a row, and are 44% below the 1990 baseline for the UK. Emissions of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, are at the lowest level since before the start of the 20th century, when Queen Victoria was still on the throne, government officials said.
Continue reading...Searching for invisible giants – Look at me podcast
Eastern Victoria is home to a strange creature that few have seen and even fewer have researched. You may be able to hear its gurgles under the ground but the 1.5- to 3-metre-long Giant Gippsland earthworm never comes to the surface in its natural life. In this episode of Look at me, Chris McCormack finds the only world expert on this creature and asks: why would you devote your life to a giant worm?
Continue reading...Global 'collapse' in number of new coal-fired power plants
Not long before coal use is over, say analysts, while warning of possible resurgence in China
The number of coal-fired power plants being developed around the world has collapsed in the last three years, according to a report.
The number of plants on which construction has begun each year has fallen by 84% since 2015, and 39% in 2018 alone, while the number of completed plants has dropped by more than half since 2015.
Continue reading...Helicopter crushes flowers as crowds flock to 'super bloom'
Park officials say many wildflower tourists have been well-behaved, but some have ignored pleas to stay on trails
In one of the most famous literary descriptions of wildflowers, the English poet William Wordsworth wrote in the early 19th century of happily gazing upon a host of daffodils “fluttering and dancing in the breeze”. In 21st-century California, wildflowers dancing in the breeze are being trampled by helicopter.
As thousands of sightseers descend on southern California parks for a springtime “super bloom”, officials reported on Wednesday that a couple in a helicopter landed in the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve, crushing the delicate plants. They proceeded to walk around, further inflicting harm. As soon as they were approached by law enforcement officers, they scurried back into their aircraft and zoomed away.
Continue reading...'Common sense': Littleproud backs Victoria plan to curb logging to earn carbon credits
Minister breaks ranks on forest policy amid fears for beekeeping industry and the knock-on impacts on farmers
The agriculture minister, David Littleproud, is breaking ranks on federal forest policy and backing a long-stalled proposal for Victoria to earn carbon credits by winding back logging and better conserving its native forests.
The minister cites concerns over the future of the Australian beekeeping industry and the knock-on impacts for farmers for his support, saying: “It seems as though it is common sense.”
Continue reading...The last straw: European parliament votes to ban single-use plastics
Vote by MEPs paves way for law to come into force by 2021 across EU
The European parliament has voted to ban single-use plastic cutlery, cotton buds, straws and stirrers as part of a sweeping law against plastic waste that despoils beaches and pollutes oceans.
The vote by MEPs paves the way for a ban on single-use plastics to come into force by 2021 in all EU member states. The UK would have to follow the rules if it took part in and extended the Brexit transition period because of delays in finding a new arrangement with the EU.
Continue reading...Improving Britain’s geological mapping | Letter
David Nowell (Letters, 23 March) suggests that the Environment Agency should put pressure on the British Geological Survey (BGS) to improve the quality of geological mapping. Mr Nowell will be pleased to hear that there is no need for them to do this as the BGS is already working with the Environment Agency to update our geological maps in areas where groundwater resources are vulnerable to over-abstraction and/or pollution.
As new data and new requirements arise, we recognise that in some areas the existing geological interpretations become out of date. A case in point is the area to the north of Holderness (referred to in Mr Nowell’s letter), where modern imagery highlights geological structures that would not have been apparent during the original 1800s survey. This is an area important for groundwater and we are currently working with the Environment Agency to improve the geological understanding of the area to help the better management and protection of water resources. In fact, our geologists are currently “in the field” re-mapping this area.
Continue reading...US-China soy trade war could destroy 13 million hectares of rainforest
Study suggests Brazil likely to rush to fill China’s sudden soy shortfall by boosting farming
The Amazon rainforest could be the greatest casualty of the trade war between the United States and China, warns a new study showing how deforestation pressures have surged as a result of the geopolitical jolt in global soy markets.
Up to 13m hectares of forest and savannah – an area the size of Greece – would have to be cleared if Brazil and other exporters were to fill the huge shortfall in soy supply to China that has suddenly appeared since Donald Trump imposed hefty tariffs, according to the paper published in Nature.
US exports of the commodity, primarily used to feed livestock, to China plummeted by 50% last year, which the authors say is an unusually sharp level of decline between two trading partners outside wartime.
Cull invasive mammals to save island species, experts urge
Move ‘would save 10% of all endangered birds, mammals, amphibians and reptiles’
Nearly 10% of the world’s bird, mammal, amphibian and reptile species currently on the brink of extinction could be saved by killing invasive mammals such as cats and rats on 169 islands, according to a new study.
Islands comprise just 5.3% of the Earth’s landmass yet have experienced 75% of known bird, mammal, amphibian and reptile extinctions since 1500. More than a third of species currently classified as “critically endangered” on the IUCN Red List are found on islands, with many particularly vulnerable to just eight species – including feral pigs, dogs, goats and mongooses – introduced by humans.
Continue reading...Air pollution linked to psychotic experiences in young people
Teens living in dirty air 70% more likely to have symptoms such as paranoia, study finds
Young people living with higher levels of air pollution are significantly more likely to have psychotic experiences, according to the first study of the issue.
Researchers analysed the experiences of more than 2,000 17-year-olds across England and Wales and found that those in places with higher levels of nitrogen oxides had a 70% higher chance of symptoms such as hearing voices or intense paranoia.
Continue reading...Crisis of faith: pilgrims and pollution along the Ganges – in pictures
Giulio Di Sturco has spent 10 years documenting industrialisation and climate change along the Ganges in India – a river with the same legal rights as people
• Ganga Ma is published by GOST Books
Exxon Valdez: high winds threaten Alaskan oil slick - archive, 27 March 1989
27 March 1989: Threat grows from worst US spill as tanker flounders
High winds yesterday threatened to double the size of an oil slick menacing marine life in Alaskan waters as government investigators arrived on the Valdez to question the captain and crew members of the supertanker that precipitated the worst oil spill in US history.
State officials feared that high winds could aggravate the problem by doubling the size of the slick, estimated by Exxon to be about 12 square miles, while state officials contended it was 50 square miles.
Continue reading...Specieswatch: ancient crustaceans still going strong after 450m years
Ostracods live in almost every watery habitat – including Bedfordshire puddles
As Homo sapiens rushes towards extinction (in geological terms) taking with us many other species, it is good to know that some creatures that were here well before us will still be about when we are gone.
In a small puddle in a wood in Bedfordshire some crustaceans called ostracods were spotted last year “zipping about like rockets under water” as they completed their rapid transition from eggs to adults. Magically, ostracods disappear when puddles dry up only to re-emerge when conditions become favourable. The trick is that their eggs dry out and can survive for years as dust waiting for the right conditions to hatch.
Continue reading...Widespread losses of pollinating insects revealed across Britain
Wild bees and hoverflies lost from a quarter of the places they were found in 1980, study shows
A widespread loss of pollinating insects in recent decades has been revealed by the first national survey in Britain, which scientists say “highlights a fundamental deterioration” in nature.
The analysis of 353 wild bee and hoverfly species found the insects have been lost from a quarter of the places they were found in 1980. A third of the species now occupy smaller ranges, with just one in 10 expanding their extent, and the average number of species found in a square kilometre fell by 11.
Continue reading...‘It devours everything’: the crab that hitched a ride to Spain | Stephen Burgen
Only the octopus is a match for the deadly pincers of a creature that has found its way from the US to the Ebro Delta
Voracious and almost without predators, the blue crab was first sighted in the Ebro Delta on Spain’s Mediterranean coast in 2012, and since then the population has expanded exponentially, wiping out native species and forcing the fishing industry to adapt and find new markets.
The blue crab (Callinectes sapidus) is a native of the east coast of the United States. It probably found its way into the Mediterranean via ships’ ballast tanks, says Carmen Barberá, a researcher at the Marine Research Centre at the University of Alicante, who is a specialist in invasive species.
Continue reading...