Feed aggregator

Without regulations that scrutinise food standards and trade deals, we cannot trust the safety of the food on our plates

It should come as no surprise that the global meat industry is a major source of disease and crime. We are talking about a substance of animal origin, inherently alive with risky micro-organisms, necessitating expensive traceability and investment to make it safe, and worth hundreds of billions of dollars in global trade.

But in the UK, regulation is increasingly underfunded. Meat inspection services have been slashed over the past decade in favour of greater industry self-regulation, favouring private assurance schemes and meat companies being given fewer inspection if they can show general compliance. This might sound sensible until you look back over recent history and realise that it has been some highly reputable companies that have been the source of bad meat news, and that it was a spot-check random inspection that uncovered the Russell Hume case. Without robust regulation and independent checks, food scandals are too often the result. And the picture is the same all over the world, as the global demand for meat increases rapidly as wealth increases, government seeks to reduce ‘red tape’ and more people adopt western, meat-heavy diets.

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Belle needed treatment for an injured leg and is Cotswold Wildlife Park's first hand-reared white rhino calf.

Luckett, Tamar Valley: Vegetation hides the extensive spoil heaps and the midday sun gilds catkins on sprawling hazels

On the north side of Kit Hill, remnants of last night’s hail lie beside the steep road leading to the old mining settlement of Luckett. A solitary stack in a field above Deer Park Farm used to vent poisonous arsenic fumes from works in the valley below; down there, beside abandoned mine workings, dilapidated single-storey dwellings have been mooted as a mining museum.

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Government-backed power-to-gas plant in Adelaide to store renewable electricity and distribute it in gas network as hydrogen.

Brisbane City Council has been certified carbon neutral against the Australian Government’s National Carbon Offset Standard (NCOS).

Frydenberg goes to Adelaide and is trumped again by Weatherill's big vision. Leading analysts say SA Premier stands apart. "At least this man has balls."

Carnegie Clean Energy wins $3m SA govt grant to build 2MW/500kWh battery and renewable microgrid on old GM Holden site.

The Government is currently consulting on ways to improve the Safeguard Mechanism to make it fairer and simpler. Submissions are due 30 March 2018.

The Government is currently consulting on ways to improve the Safeguard Mechanism to make it fairer and simpler. Submissions are due 30 March 2018.

Study highlights urgent need to adapt urban areas to cope with floods, droughts and heatwaves

Major British towns and cities, including Glasgow, Wrexham, Aberdeen and Chester, could be much more severely affected by climate change than previously thought, according to new research.

The study, by Newcastle University, analysed changes in flooding, droughts and heatwaves for every European city using all climate models.

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The $1.7 million project will investigate if the existing mine pit of “Iron Duchess North” could be utilised as a lower reservoir for a PHES plant creating an estimated capacity of 90 MW and 390 MWh of storage.

On behalf of the Australian Government, ARENA has announced an additional $500,000 in funding to EnergyAustralia for the next stage of the 225 MW Cultana seawater pumped hydro plant in South Australia.

CEFC backs Macquarie fund, linked with CSIRO, to boost energy efficiency, sustainability – and productivity – in agribusiness.

South Australia government commits to 750MW energy storage target to go with its enhanced 75 per cent renewable energy target.

Seagrass shelters fish and acts against erosion and climate change, but is under threat

Meadows of seagrass are one of our great but sorely neglected wild plant spectacles. This humble plant spreads out in lush green carpets that can stretch for miles around much of Britain’s coast. There they shelter young fish and shellfish, as well as protecting against erosion of the coast by storms and floods, by trapping sediment in their roots.

And the seagrass meadows also play a big part in fighting climate change. They soak up carbon dioxide and hold tremendous stores of carbon on the sea floor, more than twice the carbon stored by a forest of similar area. And across the world, seagrasses are believed to lock away more than 10% of all the carbon buried each year in the oceans.

Related: Species and habitats found in recommended marine conservation zones – in pictures

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South Australia Labor government says it will lift 2025 renewable energy target to 75% if re-elected at next month's poll, the most ambitious target for any major grid in the world.

Birds can usually sense when they are not feeling well and like many other creatures, seem to seek out-of-the-way places to be alone. Grainne Cleary, Researcher, School of Life and Environmental Sciences, Deakin University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Since China refused last month to accept any more foreign waste for recycling, the UK is facing a challenge disposing of its plastic waste.

Farming union president Meurig Raymond takes veiled swipe at Liam Fox’s ‘cheap food policy’ at NFU conference

Trade with the EU after Brexit needs to be “frictionless” if the UK’s food and farming sectors are to survive the transition, the president of the National Farmers Union has said at the opening of the NFU’s conference.

Meurig Raymond, who farms a large acreage of mixed arable and livestock in Wales, said: “We must have frictionless trade with the EU. Everything else, including the final shape of any domestic agricultural policy, is dependent on that.”

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A cascade of courtroom standoffs are beginning to slow, and even reverse, the EPA rollbacks thanks to the administration’s ‘disregard for the law’

In its first year in office, the Trump administration introduced a solitary new environmental rule aimed at protecting the public from pollution. It was aimed not at sooty power plants or emissions-intensive trucks, but dentists.

Every year, dentists fill Americans’ tooth cavities with an amalgam that includes mercury. Around 5m tons of mercury, a dangerous toxin that can taint the brain and the nervous system, are washed away from dental offices down drains each year.

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