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SENG National Newsletter - May 2015
Draft decision on the state of conservation of the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area
It's time to wean ourselves off the fairytale version of farming | George Monbiot
Children’s tales bear no resemblance to the cruelty of most modern farms, yet this image enables us to turn a blind eye to animal welfare and is exploited by the industry for profit – as Kerrygold’s recent Guardian advertorial shows
The way that meat, eggs and milk are produced is surrounded by one of our great silences, in which most people collaborate. We don’t want to know, because knowing would force anyone with a capacity for empathy to change their diet.
You break this silence at your peril. After I published an article on chicken farming last week, I had to re-read it to check that I hadn’t actually proposed the slaughter of the firstborn by terrorist devil worshippers – so outraged and vicious were some of the responses. And that was just the consumers.
Continue reading...Release of Exposure Draft - NGER (Measurement) Amendment Determination 2015 (No 2)
Release of Exposure Draft - NGER (Measurement) Amendment Determination 2015 (No 2)
Fort McKay: the Canadian town that sold itself to tar sands
This tiny Alberta town is one of the world’s single biggest sources of carbon pollution. The community grew rich on oil, and was wrecked by oil. So local Cece Fitzpatrick decided to run for chief, promising to stand up to the industry that came there 50 years ago
Within a 25-mile radius of Fort McKay, 21 projects with a capacity of up to 3.3m barrels a day have been approved or are in production. Another 20 with a combined capacity of about 1.6m barrels a day are in the planning stage, according to Fort McKay First Nation.
Locals can hear, smell, feel and taste the evidence of extraction, even inside their homes. On bad days, it smells like cat piss, according to Cece Fitzpatrick.
Continue reading...Release of Australia’s National Greenhouse Accounts 2013
Release of Australia’s National Greenhouse Accounts 2013
Two species listed as critically endangered under the EPBC Act
The devil’s birds reveal their tender side
Bristol This is an aerial holiday park: the swifts are here for the local cuisine and to find romance
The wall next to Clifton Down train station is alive with the sounds of spring; the blackbird’s bubbling song, bees buzzing and the chirping of tiny tits hiding in the ivy. But sitting outside a bar with a pint of cider I’m willing it to be summer already. I’m trying to block out the commuter traffic and gossiping students to listen for a sign that the next season is on its way.
The sky is an obliging cornflower shade and the sun shines honey-coloured through my glass but the breeze is bracing. It has driven the resident swifts up beyond my hearing. A pair circle high over the shopping centre, two thin black crescents in the perfect blue sky.
Continue reading...New threatened species listings
Can we save the rhino from poachers with a 3D printer?
In a meeting room in an industrial area of San Francisco, Matthew Markus unpacks the contents of a small carved wooden box that depicts a rhinoceros with an impressive horn. Inside it are vials containing powder and small, hard-looking chunks. There are also what looks like miniature horns. “I term it conservation 2.0,” says Markus.
Markus is the co-founder of Pembient, a startup that aims to thwart the illegal wildlife trade by recreating animal products in the lab. It is starting with rhino horn but has plans for more complex materials such as elephant tusk. The hope is to produce rhino horn so biologically similar to wild horn – but at about one tenth of black market costs – that buyers and illegal traders will switch, thereby curtailing relentlessly increasing poaching levels. The mysterious box contains Pembient’s collection of prototypes. “We are working towards a bio-identical product by reverse-engineering rhino horn down to the smallest degree,” says Markus, who claims his version can be better than the real thing. “Our goal is that the only way you can tell the difference is that there will be pollutants in the wild horn.”
Continue reading...'Stable' Antarctic ice sheet may have started collapsing, scientists say
Southern Antarctic Peninsula ice sheet losing ice 8,500 times the mass of the Great Pyramid of Giza every year, satellite data shows
A vast slab of Antarctic ice that was previously stable may have started to collapse, according to new analysis of satellite data.
Research published in the journal Science on Thursday found the Southern Antarctic Peninsula (SAP) ice sheet is losing ice into the ocean at a rate of 56 gigatons each year – about 8,500 times the mass of the Great Pyramid of Giza. This adds around 0.16mm per year to the global sea level.
Continue reading...A climate change poem for today: Doggerland by Jo Bell
UK poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy curates a series of 20 original poems by various authors on the theme of climate change
The land bridge connecting Great Britain to mainland Europe during the last Ice Age was gradually flooded by rising sea levels around 6,500 BC. It was discovered in 1931 when a Norfolk trawler dredged up an unexpected artefact.
Out from Cromer in an easy sea, Pilgrim Lockwood
cast his nets and fetched up a harpoon.
Twelve thousand years had blunted not one barb.
An antler sharpened to a spike, a bony bread knife
from a time of glassy uplands and no bread:
Greetings from Doggerland, it said.
Harlequin ladybirds declared UK's fastest invading species
World’s most invasive ladybird is consolidating its presence in the country and is responsible for the decline of seven native species, scientists say
Harlequin ladybirds have been declared the UK’s fastest invading species after reaching almost every corner of the country in just a decade.
The cannibalistic ladybirds were first realised to have reached the UK in 2004 when they were seen in Essex and have since spread as far afield as the tip of Cornwall and the Shetland Islands, making it the fastest alien invasion of the UK on record. Grey squirrels, American mink, ring-necked parakeets and muntjac deer are advancing at a rate far behind them.
Continue reading...The Svalbard seed vault: safeguarding the world's crop varieties – video
Wales launches £25m underwater kite-turbine scheme
Anglesey renewable energy project to generate enough electricity to power 8,000 homes
A unique renewable energy scheme involving underwater “kite-turbines” is being launched off the coast of north Wales.
As part of the £25m project, 20 turbines will be anchored off Anglesey and when fully operational should generate enough electricity to power 8,000 homes.
Continue reading...Icelandic plan to ship whale meat to Japan angers environmentalists
Campaigners say scheduled export of 1,700 tonnes of fin whale meat, set to be eaten by Japanese diners, flouts conservation agreements
Environmentalists have reacted angrily to a controversial planned shipment of fin whale meat to Japan by an Icelandic whaling company, saying it flouted international conservation agreements.
The Icelandic whaling company Hvalur HF plans to ship 1,700 tonnes of whale meat via Luanda in Angola, repeating a similar controversial delivery of 2,000 tonnes last year which sparked protests along its route.
Continue reading...Chairs’ Update 19 May 2015 | Commonwealth Marine Reserves Review
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