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Climate change tipping points are not just symbolic | Letters
This symbolic threshold (Carbon dioxide levels bring climate change into a ‘new era’, 25 October) is one of many very real tipping points the world will experience on a path of climate change due to human effects. The tipping points we should also be paying attention to are the mass extinctions, global warming, melting ice and complete habitat changes we are currently seeing worldwide. Soon we will recognise these not as symbolic thresholds but more as points of no return. The Paris and Kigali agreements are both important for slowing down the climate trend wiping out animal and plant species worldwide. But both are just bandages to the real problem of resource management and consumption practices exacerbating the problems to unsustainable limits.
Caroline Hernandez
Chevy Chase, Maryland, USA
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Continue reading...Heathrow expansion is good for business – but not for most of us | Brief letters
Both Aditya Chakrabortty (Opinion, 26 October) and Ken Loach in his film I, Daniel Blake highlight the horrors created by the destruction of social security by austerity and bureaucracy. However, they are in danger of recreating the pernicious distinction between the deserving and undeserving poor. Homelessness, unemployment, ill-health, sanctions and the denial of benefits make some people angry, uncooperative and even violent. Our outrage should not just be on behalf of the nice people.
Ruth Eversley
Paulton, Somerset
• I am told yet again that the decision (Heathrow expansion) is “good for business” (Report, 26 October). We have seen big business drive this country’s economy into one of low wages, low skills, and low productivity. Add in rubbish roads, stuffed trains and minimal housebuilding, plus massive financial misconduct and the trashing of people’s pensions, and it may be “good for business” – but it’s not good for most of us.
Ray Chalker
London
HIV Patient Zero cleared by science
New projects boost Europe's attractiveness to renewables investors
Europe may be performing better in EY’s influential rankings, but the UK has fallen to its lowest position yet, reports BusinessGreen
Earlier this year it was starting to look worryingly like Europe was slamming into reverse gear with its clean energy policy. In its biannual report on renewables investment, released in May, consultancy EY reported that countries across the continent were becoming less attractive to investors as the pipelines of clean energy projects slowed following widespread subsidy cuts and a perceived “scaling back” of ambition.
Almost without exception, European markets slipped down the rankings while emerging economies across Latin America, Asia and Africa took their place near the top of the league table thanks to government plans to deploy green energy as a fast, relatively cheap way to develop their grids.
Continue reading...Japan pleads with whaling watchdog to allow 'cultural' hunts
Countries including US, Europe, Australia vehemently oppose small hunts by coastal communities but Japan says are unjustly barred from a traditional food source
Japan pleaded with the world’s whaling watchdog Wednesday to allow small hunts by coastal communities, arguing that for three decades these groups had been unjustly barred from a traditional source of food.
The issue of “small type coastal hunting” is a key dispute between pro- and anti-whaling nations gathered in Slovenia for the 66th meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC).
Continue reading...Dish to listen for ET around strange star
Oil drilling underway beneath Ecuador's Yasuní national park
Government claims oil extraction is causing minimal disturbance to the Unesco biosphere reserve in the Amazon
Ecuador has confirmed that oil drilling has begun under the country’s Yasuní national park, one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots.
But the government claims that there has been only minimal disturbance to the Unesco biosphere reserve in the Amazon rainforest since extraction of 23,000 barrels of oil a day began last month.
Mosquito army released in Zika fight in Brazil & Colombia
Humans create carbon emissions which spawn Australia's extreme weather – report
State of the Climate report from CSIRO and Bureau of Meteorology says human activities have driven ‘significant changes’ to Australia’s climate
Carbon emissions from human activities have driven significant changes to the climate in Australia, including about 1C of warming and an increase in extreme hot days and fire weather, according to the latest State of the Climate report released by the CSIRO and Bureau of Meteorology.
This year the report includes new information on the cause of extreme weather, pointing the finger clearly at carbon emissions from human activities, as well as the latest findings on warming in the oceans.
Continue reading...EU drops law to limit cancer-linked chemical in food after industry complaint
Campaigners say leaked documents show ‘undue influence’ by the food industry after plans to limit acrylamide - found in starchy foods such as crisps, cereals and baby foods - are weakened
The European commission has dropped plans to legally limit a pervasive but naturally occurring chemical found in food, that is linked to cancer, just days after lobbying by industry, the Guardian has learned.
Campaigners say that leaked documents revealing the legislative retreat show “undue influence” by the food industry over EU law-making and a “permanent scandal”, although the issue is complex.
Continue reading...Scottish scientist dies in Antarctica in snowmobile accident
Chris Grayling: Heathrow third runway could have ramp over M25 – video
The transport secretary, Chris Grayling, tells BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that building the third Heathrow runway over the M25 rather than tunnelling under the motorway would be a cheaper and quicker way of completing the project
- Listen to the full clip on BBC Radio 4 Today’s website
- Build Heathrow third runway on ramp over M25, minister says
Wet wipes flushed down toilet block drains says water firms
'Life is hard': the refugee family picking through waste to survive – in pictures
Syrian refugee Firas el Jasmin struggled to find work in Turkey because of his disability, so took to the streets with his son to collect recyclable material which he sells on to support his family
Continue reading...'Super-parenting' improves children's autism
Majority of coral dead or damaged from bleaching in northern Great Barrier Reef
Victoria gives nod to “fairer” time-of-use tariffs for rooftop solar
UK water firms call for 'do not flush' labelling on wet wipes
Letter to trading standards body calls for manufacturers to remove ‘misleading’ labelling to prevent wipes from blocking sewers and washing up on beaches
Continue reading...
What is causing the rapid rise in methane emissions?
Yale environment 360: New research finds some surprising culprits and shows that fossil-fuel sources have played a much larger role than previously estimated
The stomachs of cattle, fermentation in rice fields, fracking for natural gas, coal mines, festering bogs, burning forests — they all produce methane, the second most important greenhouse gas, after carbon dioxide. But how much? And how can we best cut these emissions? And is fracking frying the planet, or are bovine emissions more to blame?
Until now, the world has not had a definitive answer to these questions. But in recent months, researchers believe they have finally begun to crack the problem — and the results are surprising.
The amount of methane in the atmosphere has more than doubled in the past 250 years. It has been responsible for about a fifth of global warming. But it has a confusing recent history. The steady rise of emissions stopped in the 1990s. Emissions were stable for almost a decade until 2007, but then abruptly resumed their rise.
Related: Fossil fuel industry's methane emissions far higher than thought
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