Feed aggregator

Images and a short film are inserted into bacteria DNA and recovered with 90% accuracy.

It's twice the size of Luxembourg and is not adrift in the Weddell Sea.

Labor criticises ‘appalling intervention’ by Craig Kelly, who is chair of backbench energy committee

Renewable energy will kill people this winter, Craig Kelly, the chair of the Coalition’s backbench environment and energy committee has claimed.

Kelly, a Liberal backbencher, said the deaths would be caused by people not being able to afford to heat their homes in winter. He blamed rising fuel costs on the government’s renewable energy target.

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Should new mega mines and coal seam gas projects have a 'social licence' to extract groundwater?

Australia’s tidal energy resource will be mapped in unprecedented detail in a new study funded by the Commonwealth Government through the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA).

Australia might have been 'built on the sheep's back' but we can't eat off it. Stanley Zimny/Flickr, CC BY-NC

Population growth has profound impacts on Australian life, and sorting myths from facts can be difficult. This article is part of our series, Is Australia Full?, which aims to help inform a wide-ranging and often emotive debate.

Australia feeds a lot of people. As a big country with a relatively small population, we have just over two arable hectares per person, one of the highest ratios in the world. Our diverse soils and climate provide a wide variety of fresh food all year round.

Historically we produce far more than we consume domestically. We sell around 65% of farm production overseas, making Australia a leading food-exporting nation. We therefore contribute to the food security not just of Australia, but of many other nations.

However, despite being a net food exporter, Australia also imports foods such as coffee, chocolate, processed fruit and vegetables, and key ingredients used in baking our daily bread. We are part of a global food system.

How will a swelling population, projected to reach between 36.8 million and 48.3 million by 2061, affect our food security? Are we set up to weather the storm of climate change, the degradation of our natural resources, and competition for land and water use from mining and urban expansion?

By the numbers

Current Australian government policy is to increase agricultural production and food exports, with a specific focus on developing Australia’s north.

In addition to providing food and nutrition security, the Australian food sector is a key driver of public health, environment, the economy and employment. The gross value of production from Australia’s 135,000 farmers varies between A$55 billion and A$64 billion a year, with exports accounting for between A$45 billion and A$48 billion.

Horticultural production (fruit, nuts and vegetables) will swell as Australian growers move to satisfy growing Asian demand.

Australian food processing companies add a further A$32 billion of value from 150 large food processors. We exported $A26 billion worth of processed food and beverages in 2015-16 and imported A$16.8 billion, resulting in a trade surplus of A$9.1 billion (rounded to one decimal place).

The food retail sector has an annual turnover around A$126 billion, with about 70% of Australians shopping at Woolworths or Coles. It’s also worth noting that considerable land and water resources are devoted to non-food commodities such as forestry, cotton and wool, and to environmental outcomes such as carbon sequestration or biodiversity plantings.

One in seven Australian jobs (1.6 million) are in the farm-dependent economy, and food and beverage processing employs around one-third of all Australian manufacturing workers, with promising growth prospects. Many jobs are seasonal and based in the regions. Farm and food enterprises rely on foreign workers for many key tasks, resulting in the food sector being particularly sensitive to changes in temporary work visas.

How to feed more people

If Australia reaches its projected population of between 36.8 million and 48.3 million by 2061, could we feed everyone?

For the sake of this exercise, let’s leave aside food we import, and assume that Australia will continue to export 65% of the food we produce.

Currently, our exports feed (at least in part) 36.6 million people outside Australia. If we add that to our domestic population, 61 million people will eat Australian food in 2017.

If we apply the same assumptions to projected high and low Australian populations for 2061, we arrive at a total (domestic plus export) population fed by Australian production of 92 million to 121 million, or an increase of 51-98%.

Could Australia double the number of people we feed by 2061? The answer is yes, but not simply by doubling the amount of food we produce. Three broad strategies will need to be integrated to reach this target:

1. Increase food productivity. We need to aim for 2% growth in annual food production by increasing investment research and development for food and agriculture. For comparison, between 1949 and 2012 we have averaged 2.1% annual growth, although from 2000-12 that slumped to 0.6%. Achieving this productivity target will be difficult, given the challenge of climate change and other constraining factors.

2. Reduce food waste. We currently waste around 30% of the food we produce. Reducing food waste benefits the environment and the economy. This strategy requires ongoing improvements in supply chain efficiency, changes in marketing, and consumer education.

3. Change our eating patterns. Moving towards sustainable diets will improve public health and environment outcomes. Reducing overconsumption (a contributor to obesity), eating more vegetables and less discretionary “junk” foods represent initial steps in this direction.

The next few decades will present unprecedented challenges and opportunities for the Australian food sector. Placing the consumer at the centre of healthy, sustainable and ethical food systems will be increasingly important, whether that consumer lives in Brisbane or Beijing. New ways of connecting consumers to producers will become commonplace, creating more informed and empowered consumers, and rewarding innovation.

Research highlighting the interconnections between food, health and environment will be required to support Australia’s claims to being a clean, green provider of food.

It’s easy to conclude that Australia can feed many more people than we currently do, but the real issue is to do this while ensuring our food system is healthy, sustainable and fair. Ultimately, exporting the research, technology and education that underpin our future food system will benefit far more people than those directly consuming food produced in Australia.

Bill Bellotti does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.

How about a national network to link people who undertake to pick up just one piece of litter every time they go out, suggests Wendy Harvey

What can we do about litter? It spoils our streets and countryside and ends up being washed out to sea, polluting our oceans. It frustrates and saddens many of us, and no one seems to know what to do about it. As soon as it is cleared up it reappears in a never-ending cycle. So here’s an idea: how about launching a positive-spirited national network to link together people who undertake to pick up just one piece of litter every time they go out (Andrew Mayers: I pick up plastic waste to save it from landfill. It’s lonely but worth it, 4 July)?

Why might this work where other approaches have failed? Because it is such a small easy thing for each person to commit to, but if many people did it the cumulative results could be surprising. Being a lone litter-picker can feel like being Sisyphus, doomed to push his boulder up the hill again and again. If each person knew they were part of a network doing the same thing, results would begin to be seen.

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Electric taxis | Pay caps | Unpaved gardens | Medieval monks | True north? | Coining it in

How welcome to see an electric taxi, and we should hail it by all means (Financial, 12 July). But is it the first? Far from it, apparently. Electric taxis first appeared in London at the end of the 19th century, but the “hummingbirds”, as they were known, were very quickly hounded off the road by their horse-drawn rivals. The London Electric Cab Company, which built them, went bust. See Rethink by Steven Poole, reviewed by you July 2016, bought by me July 2017.
David Beake
Budock Water, Cornwall

• Yet again a government department pits public sector workers against taxpayers, as though these are two distinct groups (May under fire as teacher pay held at 1%, 11 July). I fear that as public sector pay becomes more and more eroded, many will indeed find themselves paid below the threshold to start paying tax – could this be the ultimate aim of this damaging cap?
Deirdre Burrell
Mortimer, Berkshire

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In Boigu, part of Australia but just six kilometres from Papua New Guinea, roads are being washed into the sea

Torres Strait residents face being forced from their homes by climate change, as their islands are lost to rising seas.

On Boigu Island, the most northerly inhabited island in Australia, just six kilometres from Papua New Guinea, the community’s cemetery faces inundation and roads are being washed into the sea. A seawall installed to protect the community is already failing.

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Drinks giant’s proposals to reduce plastic waste are unambitious and vague, say some enviromental groups

Coca-Cola’s plan to reduce the millions of plastic bottles that end in the world’s oceans every day has been criticised by environmental groups as unambitious “PR spin”.

The world’s biggest drinks brand, estimated to produce more than 100bn plastic bottles every year, raised its 2020 target for the amount of recycled plastic used in its bottles from 40% to 50%.

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Campaigners from organisations including Greenpeace, the National Trust and Friends of the Earth highlight major risks to environment if EU protections are dropped or diluted

Environmental campaigners with 8 million members between them are putting forward key amendments to the repeal bill to be published on Thursday to tackle the threat of Brexit leaving huge gaps in environmental protection in the UK.

Campaigners from organisations including the RSPB, Client Earth, Greenpeace, the National Trust, and Friends of the Earth, are highlighting the major risks to the environment if the spirit and letter of EU law and the ability to enforce it, is not rolled over into the repeal bill.

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Obike have become the first dockless hire bike company to launch in the capital, following similar schemes in Manchester and Cambridge

London’s first dockless hire bikes were launched on Wednesday morning in the first phase of what is expected to be a rapid rollout of the machines by Singapore-based company Obike to cities all across the UK.

Obike – not to be confused with Mobike, which launched in Manchester exactly a month ago – delivered 400 of its bikes to the London borough of Tower Hamlets today, and intends to roll out thousands more across the city before the end of the month, at a rate of hundreds per day.

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A video posted to YouTube shows a protester at Preston New Road fracking site in Lancashire being knocked down by a van leaving the drilling area. Following the incident police have beefed up security, providing 24/7 monitoring around the site, which has long been a focal point of anti-fracking protests

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A new study has crunched the numbers on efforts to fight climate change, from skipping holidays to ditching our cars. Here’s a guide to the (not always) easy ways to be green

It’s easy to feel powerless in the face of new coal mines and shrinking rainforests in distant countries, but we also know that being green starts at home. We do what we can, right? But what really helps, and what is a drop in a warming ocean? A study by the Universities of Lund, Sweden, and British Columbia, Canada, has crunched the numbers and the results are intriguing. Bottom line: every little recycled yoghurt pot helps, but the environmental impacts of our actions vary massively. Here’s a cut-out-and-keep (and then, you know, recycle) guide to a greener you.

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The government is about to set out its position on membership of Europe's nuclear regulator after Brexit.

Selection of Oxford University economist Dieter Helm may be controversial because of his criticism of wind and solar power

An academic who is a vocal critic of the costs of renewable power has been selected by the government to head a landmark review of the cost of energy in the UK.

Dieter Helm, an economist at the University of Oxford, has been chosen by the Department for Business, Industrial and Energy Strategy (BEIS) to carry out the review, the Guardian has learned. The Conservative manifesto promised the resulting report would be the first step towards “competitive and affordable energy costs”.

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Cuadrilla drill site to be monitored 24/7 as Green MEP renews calls for reviewing guidance to police officers on how to deal with anti-fracking protests

Security is being beefed up at a fracking site in Lancashire after a protester was hit by a van on Monday.

A Youtube video posted immediately after the incident shows the protester, dressed in grey and black, trying to block a white van leaving the Preston New Road drill site.

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Why are scientists are worried about the open seas?

A giant section of the Larsen C ice shelf in the Antarctic peninsula has broken off, unleashing a 5,000 sq km iceberg – about a quarter of the size of Wales

One of largest icebergs ever recorded breaks off Antarctic ice shelf

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A block of ice a quarter the size of Wales calves from the eastern side of the Antarctic Peninsula.