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How could the UK-US trade deal affect your food? – Q&A
Chlorinated chicken is the tip of the iceberg. Current EU standards cover everything from conditions for battery hens to antibiotics use in farms, and they are all up for negotiation
The international trade secretary Liam Fox has been in the US for the preliminary stages of thrashing out a trade deal to take effect after the UK leaves the EU. He was asked about the trade in food and agricultural products, which is likely to form a key plank of any deal. Fox on Monday refused to rule out allowing imports of chlorinated chicken, which is banned under EU regulations. Then Michael Gove, secretary of state for the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs stepped in on Wednesday morning to say that the UK would not permit imports of chlorinated chicken under any new trade rules.
Continue reading...Government's air quality plan is cynical headline-grabbing, say critics
Michael Gove’s pledge to ban new petrol and diesel cars in 23 years is not enough to tackle health crisis now, say campaigners
Michael Gove’s new air quality plan has been criticised for failing to take enough immediate action to stop people dying from pollution, while promising to ban petrol and diesel cars in 23 years’ time.
The long-awaited document contains a pledge to stop new petrol and diesel cars being sold after 2040, as well as measures to encourage councils to tackle pollution hotspots and a limited scrappage scheme for the most polluting older vehicles.
Continue reading...Passers-by rescue dolphin on Weymouth beach
Tell us what it is like to drive an electric car or van where you live
The UK plans to ban diesel and petrol vehicles from 2040. With the future looking electric we’d like to hear your driving experiences
From 2040, Britain plans to ban all new petrol and diesel cars and vans as part of the government’s much-anticipated clean air plan.
Amid fears that rising levels of nitrogen oxide pose a major risk to public health, the government said the move is needed because of the unnecessary and avoidable impact that poor air quality was having on people’s health.
Climate change threatens ‘Himalayan Viagra’ fungus, and a way of life
Valuable fungus, prized as a reputed aphrodisiac, is disappearing due to warming temperatures, reports Climate Home
A Himalayan fungus used in Chinese medicine, which underpins the livelihoods of communities of harvesters in Nepal, is under the threat due to climate change.
Harvesting the Cordyceps sinensis fungus, called ‘yarsha gumba’ in Nepal, provides a livelihood for Himalayan dwellers. The fungus fetches up to Rs 2,800,000 (£20,000) per kg in raw form. During the peak season of yarsha collection, locals drop everything to pursue fungus hunting, including their usual profession. Even schools remain closed during yarsha collecting seasons.
Continue reading...Trump pulled out the oil industry playbook and players for Paris | Benjamin Franta
The fossil fuel industry used the same arguments, and even the same people, to block climate policies in the 1990s. We must not let this happen again.
Since President Trump announced on June 1 that the U.S. would cease implementation of the Paris Agreement, pundits have argued about whether the American pullout will truly affect greenhouse gas pollution one way or another, since, after all, the Paris Agreement was not legally binding to begin with.
We don’t know the future, but we do know the past, and here’s something we shouldn’t miss: we’ve seen this before. The same arguments used by President Trump - and even the same people he cited - were used by the oil and gas industry to block climate policies throughout the 1990s, including the United States’ implementation of the Kyoto Protocol. The playbook from twenty years ago is back, and this time we must be ready for it.
Horses and rabbits make lucky escapes from New Zealand floods – video report
A group of horses caught in a flooded river make a run for it after heavy rains in New Zealand’s South Island over the weekend. Three wild rabbits also managed to escape floods by hopping on to the backs of some sheep. Videos courtesy of fergs3374 and Kyla Jasperse
Continue reading...Loved to death: Sequoia national monument faces wildfires and logging
As the Trump administration continues to roll back protections on public lands, timber industry advocates are pushing to reduce federal defenses for California’s giant trees
For the largest living things standing on the planet, California’s giant sequoias have an unassuming, almost gentle, aura to them. The recognizable cinnamon-colored bark is soft and fibrous. Its cones are modest. When cut down, the trees tend to shatter and won’t produce reliably sturdy timber.
These majestic plants have a lineage stretching back to the Jurassic period but fears over their future have prompted a somewhat counterintuitive plan presented to the Trump administration – in order to save the giant sequoias, some say, their surrounding area must be stripped of protected status.
Continue reading...Man arrested for smuggling king cobras to the US in crisp canisters
California man faces up to 20 years in prison after the three live snakes were illegally shipped from Hong Kong
A man has been arrested on federal smuggling charges after customs officers intercepted a shipment with three live king cobras hidden inside potato chip canisters that were being mailed to his California home, US prosecutors said.
Rodrigo Franco, 34, was scheduled to be arraigned on Tuesday afternoon in Los Angeles on a charge of illegally importing merchandise. It was not immediately clear if he had an attorney who could comment on the allegations.
Continue reading...Ireland's staggering hypocrisy on climate change
The national climate policy is a greenwash – the country is certain to miss its 2020 emissions target and still handing out drilling licences
On the face of it, Ireland appears to be acting on climate change. Last year it appointed its first ever “climate action minister”, and in June it outlawed onshore fracking. What’s more, the telegenic new taoiseach Leo Varadkar dedicated much of the first day of his Cabinet retreat to discussing climate change.
Last week Varadkar introduced Ireland’s first national mitigation plan (NMP) in more than a decade, and said that addressing climate change would “require fundamental societal transformation and, more immediately, allocation of resources and sustained policy change.” If success could be measured simply by repetition – the word “sustainable” appears no fewer than 110 times in the NMP – Ireland would undoubtedly be among the world’s leading countries.
Continue reading...Pegas reborn: Romania's communist bicycle returns with oomph and style
A proletariat era symbol gets a modern makeover as a nostalgic nation warms up to its iconic bike brand
In communist Romania, almost every child had a Pegas bicycle. In a country cut off from the outside world, the state-owned company’s distinctive bikes were all people knew. However, with the violent end of Nicolae Ceaușescu’s reign in 1989, all that changed.
Continue reading...Is the Murray-Darling Basin Plan broken?
A recent expose by the ABC’s Four Corners has alleged significant illegal extraction of water from the Barwon-Darling river system, one of the major tributaries of the Murray River. The revelations have triggered widespread condemnation of irrigators, the New South Wales government and its officials, the Murray-Darling Basin Authority and the Basin Plan itself.
If the allegations are true that billions of litres of water worth millions of dollars were illegally extracted, this would represent one of the largest thefts in Australian history. It would have social and economic consequences for communities along the entire length of the Murray-Darling river system, and for the river itself, after years of trying to restore its health.
Water is big business, big politics and a big player in our environment. Taxpayers have spent A$13 billion on water reform in the Murray-Darling Basin in the past decade, hundreds of millions of which have gone directly to state governments. Governments have an obligation to ensure that this money is well spent.
The revelations cast doubt on the states’ willingness to do this, and even on their commitment to the entire Murray-Darling Basin Plan. This commitment needs to be reaffirmed urgently.
Basic principlesTo work out where to go from here, it helps to understand the principles on which the Basin Plan was conceived. At its foundation, Australian water reform is based on four pillars.
1. Environmental water and fair consumption
The initial driver of water reform in the late 1990s was a widespread recognition that too much water had been allocated from the Murray-Darling system, and that it had suffered ecological damage as a result.
State and Commonwealth governments made a bipartisan commitment to reset the balance between water consumption and environmental water, to help restore the basin’s health and also to ensure that water-dependent industries and communities can be strong and sustainable.
Key to this was the idea that water users along the river would have fair access to water. Upstream users could not take water to the detriment of people downstream. The Four Corners investigation casts doubt on the NSW’s commitment to this principle.
2. Water markets and buybacks
The creation of a water market under the Basin Plan had two purposes: to allow water to be purchased on behalf of the environment, and to allow water permits to be traded between irrigators depending on relative need.
This involved calculating how much water could be taken from the river while ensuring a healthy ecosystem (the Sustainable Diversion Limit). Based on these calculations, state governments developed a water recovery program, which aimed to recover 2,750 gigalitres of water per year from consumptive use, through a A$3 billion water entitlement buyback and a A$9 billion irrigation modernisation program.
This program hinged on the development of water accounting tools that could measure both water availability and consumption. Only through trust in this process can downstream users be confident that they are receiving their fair share.
3. States retain control of water
Control of water was a major stumbling block in negotiating the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, because of a clash between states’ water-management responsibilities and the Commonwealth’s obligations to the environment.
As a result, the Murray-Darling Basin Authority sits outside of both state and Commonwealth governments, and states have to draw up water management plans that are subject to approval by the authority.
The states are responsible for enforcing these plans and ensuring that allocations are not exceeded. The Murray-Darling Basin Authority cannot easily enforce action on the ground – a situation that generates potential for state-level political interference, as alleged by the Four Corners investigation.
4. Trust and transparency
The Murray-Darling Basin Plan was built on a foundation of trust and transparency. The buyback scheme has transformed water into a tradeable commodity worth A$2 billion a year, a sizeable chunk of which is held by the Commonwealth Environmental Water Office.
Water trading has also helped to make water use more flexible. In a dry year, farmers with annual crops (such as cotton) can choose not to plant and instead to sell their water to farmers such as horticulturists who must irrigate to keep their trees alive. This flexibility is valuable in Australia’s highly variable climate.
Yet it is also true that water trading has created some big winners. Those with pre-existing water rights have been able to capitalise on that asset and invest heavily in buying further water rights, an outcome highlighted in the Four Corners story.
More than A$20 million in research investment has been devoted to ensuring that the ecological benefits of water are optimised – most notably through the Environmental Water Knowledge and Research and Long Term Intervention Monitoring programs. What is not clear is whether water extractions and their policing have been subjected to a similar degree of review and rigour.
What next for the Murray-Darling Basin?The public needs to be able to trust that all parties are working honestly and accountably. This is particularly true for the downstream partners, who are the most likely victims of management failures upstream. Without trust in the upstream states, the Murray-Darling Basin Plan will unravel.
State governments urgently need to reaffirm their commitment to the four pillars that underpin the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, and to reassure the public that in retaining control of water they are operating in good faith.
Finally, rigour and transparency are needed in assessing the Basin Plan’s methods and environmental benefits, and the operation of the water market. The Productivity Commission’s review of national water policy, and its specific review of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan next year, will offer a clear opportunity to reassure everyone that the A$13 billion of public money that has gone into water reform in the past decade has been money well spent.
Only then will the fragile trust that underlies the water reform process be maintained and built.
Ross Thompson receives funding from the Australian Research Council, and has previously been contracted to the NSW and Victorian state governments to provide advice on the MDB Plan. He has completed paid external reviews for the Murray Darling Basin Authority, and is a researcher on current projects funded by the Commonwealth Environment Water Holder.
Captive by Jo-Anne McArthur: plight of animals in captivity – in pictures
McArthur’s book of photographs puts the spotlight on ethics of zoos around the world. Accompanied by essays by Born Free Foundation’s Virginia McKenna and philosopher Lori Gruen, the images and stories are also shared online through A Year of Captivity. Images from both projects will be exhibited at Toronto’s Harbourfront Centre from 7 to 10 September
Continue reading...Australia’s largest solar farm – 220MW – under construction
Damned as dangerous but ragwort is full of life
Wenlock Edge, Shropshire A fantasia of hoverflies, solitary bees, bumblebees, butterflies and beetles feed on ragwort
Ragwort makes fields of gold, and to walk in them feels far more transgressive than a bucolic stroll through wheat or barley. Unlike the pale, safe, beige of ripening cereal crops, the ragwort is bold as brass. Unlike the slim pickings in the stashes of mice (and men), the ragwort swarms with life.
The insects, and those creatures who feed on them, are harvesting a crop that is toxic to humans yet the antidote to the intensive agriculture that harms insects.
Continue reading...Out with “minister for Adani” – in with a minister for renewables?
Consumers vs the empire: The economics favour partial grid defection
UK govt launches £246m battery storage investment round
Weatherill lets fly at right wing attack against renewables
Innovation, disruption and the utility business model
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