Around The Web
AEMO says AGL plans more than enough to replace Liddell
Sustainable shopping: if you really, truly need a new phone, buy one with replaceable parts
It’s time we listened to people like Mark Boyle | Letters
Bravo, Mark Boyle – your world sounds very beguiling to an oldie like me (I left a troubled world behind. Now let me tell you how to fix it, 20 March). However, I’ve lost count of the number of times in my life that I have heard this siren song, but no one with any influence ever seems to listen or even wake up. But, as Mark says, we can try small remedies ourselves should we be lucky enough to have a garden. It reminds me of an old Canadian friend who was convinced he could protect his family from the coming apocalypse by buying a farm, until he realised he’d have to have a gun – and use it – to stop those less fortunate from taking what he had. Or the 1970s German bumper sticker that translated as “everyone wants to go back to Eden but no one wants to go on foot”.
Linda Marriott
North Hykeham, Lincolnshire
• Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
Continue reading...Origin of 'six-inch mummy' confirmed
'Dead zone' in Gulf of Mexico will take decades to recover from farm pollution
A new study says that even in the ‘unrealistic’ event of a total halt to the flow of agricultural chemicals the damage will persist for 30 years
The enormous “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico will take decades to recover even if the flow of farming chemicals that is causing the damage is completely halted, new research has warned.
Continue reading...Coalition accuses green groups of misleading public on forestry agreements
Anne Ruston says National Parks Association “engaged in a campaign to mislead the Australian people” after groups make public submissions on RFAs
The government has accused green groups of deliberately misleading the Australian people by raising concerns about the roll over of long term logging agreements.
Related: NSW Labor refuses to approve forestry agreements based on 'out-of-date' science
Continue reading...Plastic patch in Pacific Ocean growing rapidly, study shows
'Great Pacific garbage patch' sprawling with far more debris than thought
The patch of detritus is more than twice the size of France and is at least four times larger than previously estimated
An enormous area of rubbish floating in the Pacific Ocean is teeming with far more debris than previously thought, heightening alarm that the world’s oceans are being increasingly choked by trillions of pieces of plastic.
Continue reading...World Water Day: Deadly plight of Brazil's river defenders goes unheard
At a high-level talking shop for the global water industry in Brazil, river defenders and community activists - who are often murdered or criminalised for trying to protect their resources - have set up an alternative forum to share their stories
While presidents, royalty and corporate dignitaries gave speeches at a global conference in Brasil’s federal capital this week on the need to protect water sources, river defender Ageu Lobo Pereira was running for his life through the Amazon forest.
The head of the riverine communities of Montanha e Mangbal had been tipped off that assassins were preparing an ambush. They wanted to end his resistance to mines, deforestation and dams that threaten the Tapajós river.
Continue reading...Guyanese campaigners mount legal challenge against three oil giants
Crowdfunded case claims offshore oil licences were granted illegally by the Guyanese government
Three major oil companies preparing to drill off the shores of Guyana, where a string of discoveries have sparked a rush for crude, are being challenged by a group of citizens who say their dash for oil is illegal.
Lawyers acting for the Guyanese campaigners are to lodge the latest challenge in a court in Guyana this week. They are funding the battle against oil giants Exxon Mobil, Hess Corporation and Nexen, a subsidiary of Chinese national oil, through the crowdfunding site CrowdJustice.
Continue reading...Curiosity rover: 2,000 days on Mars
Anger over Sheffield's plan to fell healthy trees
Country diary: concrete threat to badger lifted for now
Tempsford, Bedfordshire: To us the entrance hole to the sett it is unfathomably small, for in our imaginations we big up the badger into a creature with the dimensions of a stripy bear
On a disused airfield where planes once lifted off on secret night missions to occupied Europe, animals roam the runways under cover of darkness. At one corner, badgers have mined a thicket of thorns with pickaxe claws and shovels for feet. Their sett is lodged among the bushes, its tunnels and chambers shored up and secured by pillars and rafters of roots. It has spread to the point where the mouth of the newest hole gapes out over the open airfield. A portal between day and night, a D-shape on its side, it slumbers in the sun, while, deep inside, curled-up animals dream of dusk, their babies still a couple of months away from emergence. The hole breathes out no sounds, no smells, nothing.
The entrance hole to the sett would represent a canyon to a rabbit, but to us it is unfathomably small, for in our imaginations we big up the badger into a creature with the dimensions of a stripy bear.
Continue reading...Fishing is a global business and vital to feed the world – archive, 1960
22 March 1960: A problem with which mankind is faced at the moment is how to adapt local fishing to local needs
Every development in the fishing industry to-day points to the fact that it is becoming world business.
Among the latest proposals for expansion is the employment of two former aircraft carriers which are to be converted into mother ships operating with fleets of trawlers working at sea. Fish factory ships are becoming more popular. Their crews not only catch fish in the trawl; they fillet it, process it, make fishmeal and liver oil, and finally deliver the fillets in deep frozen packages.
Continue reading...