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Have a bird’s eye view of a Nottingham nest | Letters
If Guardian readers wish to get up close to peregrine falcons (Flying high, 15 March) they need go no farther than their computers where, by typing in “Nottingham peregrines cam” or something similar, they will be able to sit back and watch the comings and goings of the birds to their nest-box high on Nottingham Trent University in the very centre of the city. I did that, entranced, a couple of years ago as I watched the four chicks grow up and fly away.
The cameras are put in each year by Nottingham Wildlife Trust and are proving invaluable for spotting details of behaviour that can only be remarked upon when the subject is under scrutiny round the clock by someone, somewhere.
June Perry
Nottingham
Self-driving cars will change cities | Letters
Once daredevils, cyclists and pedestrians work out just how safe they are with this new technology (Google’s self-driving car avoids hitting a woman chasing a bird, theguardian.com, 17 March), it is easy to imagine how there might be a battle for rights of way. Busy crossings during rush hour could become an unbroken stream of pedestrians as self-driving cars wait helplessly. It is only a small leap from here to imagine the physical measures that may need to be implemented to keep vehicles and pedestrians separate. Fenced in pavements? Raised roadways? This technology could have bigger impacts on our built environments than we are currently anticipating.
Robert Cullen
Gothenburg, Sweden
• Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
Continue reading...SpaceX Dragon capsule returns to Earth
The eco guide to mainstream organics
We need to learn from the Danish supermarkets, where organic produce is front and centre, not niche
Say you were to swap your weekly shop with a Dane, you’d notice something strange. In Danish supermarkets like SuperBrugsen, myriad organic products are proudly displayed at the front. Try tracking down anything more exciting than an organic carrot in a UK supermarket.
With this in mind our Organic Trade Board wants us to be more Danish and go mainstream organic. There’s some way to go. In 2014, our organic spend here was just £30.60 each for the whole year. Cynics might say that this equates to one organic chicken.
Continue reading...Hi-tech tribe
Aquaculture in Indonesia
From the archive: the Torrey Canyon oil spill disaster of 1967
How the Guardian reported the grounding of the Torrey Canyon supertanker and what was then the world’s worst oil spill
On 18 March 1967, the Torrey Canyon, one of the world’s biggest tankers, ran aground between Land’s End and the Isles of Scilly, leaking more than 100,000 tonnes of crude oil into the sea. It was the UK’s worst oil spill to date, causing major environmental damage with more than 20,000 sea birds contaminated. The first Guardian report about the disaster appeared on 20 March.
Torrey Canyon disaster – the UK's worst-ever oil spill 50 years on
The UK’s biggest ever oil spill in 1967 taught invaluable lessons about the response to disasters, toughened up shipping safety and stirred green activism
“I saw this huge ship sailing and I thought he’s in rather close, I hope he knows what he’s doing,” recalled Gladys Perkins of the day 50 years ago, when Britain experienced its worst ever environmental disaster.
The ship was the Torrey Canyon, one of the first generation of supertankers, and it was nearing the end of a journey from Kuwait to a refinery at Milford Haven in Wales. The BP-chartered vessel ran aground on a rock between the Isles of Scilly and Land’s End in Cornwall, splitting several of the tanks holding its vast cargo of crude oil.
Continue reading...Did George Orwell shoot an elephant? His 1936 'confession' – and what it might mean
George Orwell wrote a shocking account of a colonial policeman who kills an elephant and is filled with self-loathing. But was this fiction – or a confession? An Orwell expert introduces the original story
British imperialism being a largely commercial concern, when Burma became a part of the empire in 1886 the exploitation of its forests accelerated. Since motorised transport was useless in such hilly terrain, the timber companies used elephants. These docile, intelligent creatures were worth their weight in gold, hauling logs, stacking them near streams, launching them on their way and sometimes even clearing log jams that the foresters could not shift.
In the 1920s a young would-be poet, an ex-Etonian named Eric Blair, arrived as a Burma Police recruit and was posted to several places, culminating in Moulmein. Here he was accused of killing a timber company elephant, the chief of police saying he was a disgrace to Eton. Blair resigned while back in England on leave, and published several books under his assumed name, George Orwell.
Continue reading...Buzz Aldrin launches VR plan to get humans to Mars
A window into the life of the wood
New Forest To some, fallen timber makes for an untidy forest. There was a time when the woodsmen would have cleared much of it away. Not now
We’re standing deep into the trees, looking through an oval porthole constructed from the boughs of a toppled oak. The sun is filtering through the still bare canopy to light up the story of this wood. As we look through the window, we are taken into its past, present and future.
The brown of autumn’s leaf drop mingles with the emerald-green of mosses. To one side, dark-green stems of butchers’ broom promise flashes of ripened scarlet berries in months to come. The stiletto blades of bluebells are just breaking free of the blanket of fallen leaves that has protected their bulbs through the winter months. Already they suggest a scene transformed, as yesterday’s base-brown becomes a wash of blue. Tall, erect trunks stand like sentinels in a painted backdrop, and mid-stage lies a tangle of branches, looking as though some huge beast has shed its antlers.
Continue reading...Stripping carbon dioxide from the atmosphere
Mission to observe Arctic climate from 2019
Two-thirds of northern Great Barrier Reef coral killed by intense heat
Pythons are forever
Australia's energy debate shifts
Birds, fluorescent frogs and Tasmania's glowing sea – 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...CO2 emissions stay same for third year in row – despite global economy growing
International Energy Agency report puts halt in emissions from energy down to growth in renewable power
Carbon dioxide emissions from energy have not increased for three years in a row even as the global economy grew, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said.
Global emissions from the energy sector were 32.1bn tonnes in 2016, the same as the previous two years, while the economy grew 3.1%, the organisation said.
Continue reading...The week in wildlife – in pictures
Nesting bald eagles, Adélie penguins and a newly hatched Komodo dragon are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world
Continue reading...Baby pygmy hippo in debut splash
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