Feed aggregator
Is chlorinated chicken about to hit our shelves after new US trade deal?
Those of us who want to eat safe, healthy food awoke to a nightmare on Tuesday, a chilling interview on Radio 4’s Today programme. Bob Young, chief economist at the American Farm Bureau Federation, made it crystal clear that any US trade deal struck by Theresa May would be contingent on the UK public stomaching imports of US foods that it has previously rejected: beef from cattle implanted with growth hormones, chlorine-washed chicken, and unlabelled genetically modified (GM) foods.
Wiping the sleep from our eyes, we hoped it was just a bad dream, but the grim reality worsened. Martin Haworth, director of strategy at the National Farmers Union (NFU), was up next. Surely our own farmers, who have worked for decades to stricter EU standards shaped by consumers’ demand for safe, natural food, would reiterate their commitment to keeping them? Not a bit of it. Haworth’s only concern was that if such controversial American products were allowed into the country, British farmers should be able to use the same production techniques to ensure “an even playing field”. Do you find it credible that British farmers could beat the US’s vast industrial feedlots, hi-tech poultry plants and vast GM prairies at their own game? No matter, the NFU does.
Continue reading...‘You can't live in a museum’: the battle for Greenland's uranium
A tiny town in southern Greenland is fighting for its future. Behind it sits one of the world’s largest deposits of uranium. Should a controversial mine get the green light?
It is a beautiful morning on the southern tip of Greenland; the sun is high in a cloudless sky, but there is a tang of cold in the air. A crowd of Spanish tourists in red parkas has gathered at the small jetty in Narsaq, to watch boatmen who have just returned from hunting a minke whale in the open sea. From the shoreline, the Spaniards watch the men below busy themselves, slicing the whale meat into slippery rectangular chunks. They work swiftly, as if cleaning up the scene of an emergency, deferring to one young man in orange overalls. As word spreads that a catch has landed, local people arrive with carrier bags and choose from the cuts laid out on the bloodstained floor of the little boats bobbing in the water. The bags are slung on handheld scales; today, whale meat costs 80 Danish kroner a kilo, about £9. A woman pushes a wheelbarrow down the jetty, loaded with what looks like a ribcage.
The whale hunter is a symbolic figure in Greenland but the flurry the Spaniards are observing is humdrum, devoid of ceremony. Sebu Kaspersen, the hunter in orange overalls, explains that there was a calm sea and they could see a lot of whales; they shot one with a rifle and then fired a harpoon to finish it off. It is, he says, the second minke whale he has killed this year, the limit of his quota. His living largely comes from fishing halibut, and hunting seals for their skin; mostly, he works alone, without a crew.
Continue reading...New mercury threat to oceans from climate change
Driven to distraction by wildlife
Strathnairn, Highlands Looking at siskins so close is a delight. I can never decide if their plumage is yellow-green or lime-green
My study is separate from the house, in the 0.4 hectare garden, and I find there are three main distractions when I try to write there during daylight. (Though not the Toad’s Hole engraving by the door, which so intrigues visitors – it’s a family joke, dating back to a time when I used to work away a lot and write home signing myself “Toad”).
The first is the large pond just below the window. We had the pond dug out 30 years ago, for the wildlife, and it has been a great success – you can even see it on the latest Ordnance Survey map.
Continue reading...Seeds offer clue to domesticated plants' larger size
Fewer, less viable sperm follows inbreeding of NZ endangered birds
It's a mad fan's world
A Big Country
Westminster council to become first to charge extra to park diesel cars
In trial aimed at cutting air pollution, diesel motorists parking in Marylebone will pay an additional 50%, or £2.45 extra an hour
Westminster will become the first council in the UK to charge drivers of diesel cars extra money to park as town halls across London battle air pollution.
The charge will be introduced for a trial period from April. Drivers of diesel-powered cars and vans will pay an additional 50%, which at current rates would be an extra £2.45 an hour to park on the street in Marylebone, one of the most polluted areas of the borough.
Continue reading...Australia's 'fairy possum' faces uncertain future
Toxic air, climate tweets and sharks – green news roundup
The week’s top environment news stories and green events. If you are not already receiving this roundup, sign up here to get the briefing delivered to your inbox
Continue reading...The week in wildlife – in pictures
A baboon squaring up to a leopard, white-tailed eagles, and a cauliflower jellyfish are among this week’s pick of animals from the natural world
Continue reading...Hotel collapses into river after torrential rain in Peru – video
The La Hacienda hotel collapses into the swollen waters of the Sicra river in the Peruvian town of Lircay on Thursday. The foundations of the three-storey tourist hotel, which is built on the river’s edge, eroded due to the constant rainfall over the past week and the rising waters. According to local media, no injuries were reported as all guests had been evacuated before it fell
Continue reading...Claim made for hydrogen 'wonder material'
Big Garden Birdwatch: cold snap may bring unusual migrant birds to gardens
Participants in the world’s biggest wildlife survey this weekend could see droves of charismatic waxwings arriving from Scandinavia, says RSPB
Unusual migrant birds could be seen in UK gardens in the cold snap, experts said as they urged people to take part in the world’s biggest wildlife survey.
More than half a million people are expected to take part in this year’s RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch, which is taking place over three days for the first time.
Continue reading...More funnel-web antivenom is needed on the East coast
Red in tooth and bored: unimpressed zoo animals – in pictures
Eric Pillot photographs animals in captivity, amid poorly approximated backdrops of their natural habitats, for his award-winning series In Situ
Continue reading...Theresa May must challenge Trump's 'contempt' for climate change, say MPs
MPs from across the political spectrum say the UK prime minister must urge the US president to remain in the global Paris agreement
Prime minister Theresa May must challenge President Donald Trump’s “contempt” for environmental protection and urge him to remain in the global agreement to fight climate change, according to MPs from across the UK’s political parties.
May will meet Trump on Friday in Washington DC and has been warned by MPs that the US president’s approach to global warming could determine whether or not people around the world suffer the worst impacts of climate change, such as severe floods, storms and heatwaves.
Continue reading...'Pink girly toys don't deter women from engineering'
The saltmarsh has its own rich tang of whisky, earth and algae
Old Hall Marshes, Essex: Outside the seawall the sombre estuarine mud is densely carved into curled knolls
A tongue of land borrowed from the mouth of the Blackwater estuary. Inside the mile-long V of grassy banks that exclude the sea the tamed land is riven by the contorted veins of once-tidal channels, now filled with freshwater. Today they are frozen into wide, snaking sheets of white. The khaki reeds that fringe the ice blend into fields of dead grass dotted with the greener humps of ancient yellow meadow ant hills.
Outside the seawall the sombre estuarine mud is densely carved into curled knolls by the dendritic tidal excavations. The higher areas are carpeted with a wiry mat of grey-leaved sea purslane, while the exposed mud in the channels is criss-crossed by probing redshank, grey plover and curlew. Between these two zones horizontal rims of salty ice mark the last two nights’ high tides. The air is largely still, under a blue sky, but bears the rich salty reek of saltmarsh, a mixture of whisky, earth and algae.
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