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Air pollution harm to unborn babies may be global health catastrophe, warn doctors
New UK research links toxic air to low birth weight that can cause lifelong damage to health, raising fears that millions of babies worldwide are being harmed
Air pollution significantly increases the risk of low birth weight in babies, leading to lifelong damage to health, according to a large new study.
The research was conducted in London, UK, but its implications for many millions of women in cities around the world with far worse air pollution are “something approaching a public health catastrophe”, the doctors involved said.
Weatherwatch: real-time maps of air pollution will soon make it easy to see where danger lies
We cannot see the tiny deadly particles that are killing people – but new digital advances are about to change that, which may spark action
In the days of London smogs it was possible to both see pollution and smell it. Now the deadliest particles are so small that it is hard for human senses to detect them, yet they are killing people just the same.
Health professionals and environmental groups may complain, but the general public seems oblivious to the danger that is damaging the health of children and adults alike in many towns and cities across the country. Perhaps it is our inability to see the cocktail of chemicals and particulates we are breathing in that has allowed successive governments to get away with doing so little about it for so long.
Continue reading...Future of Adani coalmine hanging by a thread after Chinese banks back out
Bob Carr says decision could be the end for controversial Carmichael project, adding: ‘It couldn’t have been more emphatic’
Adani’s Carmichael coalmine project will not be funded by Chinese banks, the Chinese embassy has said, in a move some see as dooming the project, and potentially Adani’s operations in Australia.
Bob Carr, the former New South Wales premier and former foreign minister, told the Guardian he had been lobbying Chinese businesses and government for three weeks before receiving confirmation from the Chinese embassy in Australia that no Chinese bank would be financing the controversial project.
Continue reading...Ryan Zinke recommends Trump shrink two more US national monuments
- Interior secretary aims to reduce Cascade-Siskiyou and Gold Butte monuments
- Zinke hits back at Patagonia after ad said ‘the president stole your land’
Interior secretary Ryan Zinke has announced recommendations to shrink two more national monuments in the western US – Cascade-Siskiyou in Oregon and California, and Gold Butte in Nevada.
Related: Trump slashes size of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase national monuments in Utah
Continue reading...Brexit is a chance to save our small farms | Letters
Your article (Clean, green New Zealand is a lie – and a warning for Britain’s countryside, 4 December) highlights the huge opportunity Brexit has presented us to create a new agriculture policy that will restore the natural environment, as well as help the farming industry to become more financially resilient and environmentally sustainable. The removal of “subsidies” following the New Zealand model is not the route to achieving this. Public funding is critical to farmers’ livelihoods – without it, roughly half of farming is uneconomic. Those likely to suffer the most are small- to medium-sized farms already struggling in very tough markets. A fifth of English farms have disappeared in the past 10 years, and the rate is fastest amongst the smallest. Almost a third of farms under 50 hectares vanished between 2005 and 2015. Farm size diversity is key to sustaining rural communities through jobs as well as protecting distinctive local character. It is also crucial to maintaining England’s world-renowned landscapes and diversity of food. We are presented with a once in a lifetime opportunity to create a farming policy framework and new funding model that will support all farmers, rural communities and economies if we are to create the diverse, thriving countryside most of us want to see.
Graeme Willis
Senior Rural Policy Campaigner, Campaign to Protect Rural England
• It is unfair of you to reduce Michael Gove’s record as environment secretary to “presentational gimmicks” (Editorial, 5 December). Few environmentalists regarded Mr Gove as a natural soulmate when he was appointed, but his short time in office has been, on the whole, hugely impressive. The UK stands to lose vital environmental protections when we leave the EU. These must be replaced. We need to carry into UK law the environmental principles (polluter pays, the precautionary principle etc) that underpin policy; and we need a strong, independent watchdog to replicate the beneficial role now played by the European Court of Justice and the European Commission in holding governments to account for their environmental practice. There is a long way to go, but Michael Gove gets this, as he gets the need to address the rising tide of plastic pollution and the alarming erosion of soil quality. What we now need is a much stronger green narrative from other parts of government, not least on housing and transport, and an unequivocal commitment to match and then exceed current EU environmental standards.
Shaun Spiers
Executive director, Green Alliance
China’s growing footprint on the globe threatens to trample the natural world
Hadrian's Wall joins forces with China's Great Wall to promote heritage sites
‘Wall to Wall’ project will see heritage experts from the UK and China work together to increase understanding of both sites and boost tourism
One is 13,171 miles long and, contrary to popular belief, cannot actually be seen from space. The other is 73 miles long and cannot be seen from Sunderland.
But now the Great Wall of China is joining up with its much tinier British counterpart, Hadrian’s Wall, to encourage more tourism and increase the historical and cultural understanding of both great barriers.
Continue reading...Big apples: unusual weather produces fruit twice the normal size
Morrisons supermarket says the apples will be the biggest sold in living memory
A British supermarket is selling supersized Braeburn apples after unusual weather conditions in the spring produced a crop of giants.
The latest frost for nearly 20 years in April meant fewer apples grew, with as much as 10% of the country’s Braeburn crop affected. However, farmers were surprised to find that the reduced crop had grown to more than twice the normal size and weight.
Continue reading...UN commits to stop ocean plastic waste
Hinkley Point's Cardiff Bay toxic mud claim 'alarmist'
Red list: thousands of species at risk of extinction due to human activity
Unsustainable farming, fishing and climate change has intensified the struggle for survival among vulnerable animals and crops, says IUCN at the release of its latest list of endangered species
Thousands of animal species are at critical risk of going extinct due to unsustainable farming and fishing methods and climate change, a conservation group has warned as it released the latest red list of endangered species.
In a rare piece of good news, the International Union for Conservation of Nature [IUCN] praised New Zealand for its success in turning around the fortunes of two species of kiwi, prompting it to upgrade them from endangered to vulnerable.
Continue reading...Pizza night aboard the International Space Station
Brexit poses huge risk to Britain's food standards, report says
Rush to secure trade deals could lead to a lowering of standards and poorer quality food in supermarkets
Brexit poses huge risks to food standards in the UK and will have “seismic implications” for its food and farming systems, according to a new report.
Author Dan Crossley, executive director of the Food Ethics Council, said that the UK faced a stark choice between promoting a high quality, ethical and sustainable system and “a race to the bottom” driven by a desire to secure post-Brexit trade deals “at any cost”.
Continue reading...Australia's frog count: App calls on citizen scientists
Royal Society Publishing Photography competition 2017 - in pictures
The Royal Society’s annual contest celebrates the power of photography to communicate science, and the role great images play in making science accessible to a wide audience. This year the competition has proved more popular than ever, attracting more than 1,100 entries.
Continue reading...IUCN Red List: Wild crops listed as threatened
Climate change is radically reshuffling UK bird species, report finds
New migrants are arriving while rising temperatures drive others away, and egg laying is taking place earlier in the year
Climate change is radically reshuffling Britain’s birds, with some species disappearing while new migrants are settling. Timings are being reset too, with egg laying getting earlier in the year, while autumn departures for warmer climes are delayed by up to a month.
The State of the UK’s Birds report for 2017, published on Tuesday, reveals the profound impact of global warming on Britain’s bird life, which is set to become even greater in the future.
Continue reading...Oceans under greatest threat in history, warns Sir David Attenborough
Blue Planet 2 producers say final episode lays bare shocking damage humanity is wreaking in the seas, from climate change to plastic pollution to noise
The world’s oceans are under the greatest threat in history, according to Sir David Attenborough. The seas are a vital part of the global ecosystem, leaving the future of all life on Earth dependent on humanity’s actions, he says.
Attenborough will issue the warning in the final episode of the Blue Planet 2 series, which details the damage being wreaked in seas around the globe by climate change, plastic pollution, overfishing and even noise.
Continue reading...Country diary: this bird could be spooked by its own shadow
Rockland Broad, Norfolk The water rail’s distressed call tells you everything about its solitary life buried in deepest cover
As the light falls in my neighouring parish and the mercury drops, so the bird sounds acquire extra layers of intensity. I’m thinking of the hysterical chinking of blackbirds in the ivy and the disembodied sharp pitt notes of Cetti’s warblers. Most evocative of all, however, are the water rails.
Related to the moorhen and coot, this arch introvert is long-legged and long-billed, with a curious laterally compressed body that enables it to thread tiny gaps between reed stems. It is common in our valley but I seldom see one. Tonight there are four, and the way they answer each other’s sounds at 100-metre intervals across the marsh tells you everything about their solitariness and oddity.
Continue reading...Kevin Rudd: ‘I don’t know how Malcolm Turnbull faces his grandkids’
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