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The good news and bad news about the rare birds of Papua New Guinea
The rainforests of Papua New Guinea are home to one of the richest bird populations in the world. But many are threatened by logging and palm oil farming.
Now, a team of researchers led by Edith Cowan University have surveyed the PNG island of New Britain to see how the bird population is faring.
The good news: several bird species, like the Blue-eyed Cockatoo, were found to be doing better than before.
The bad news: the researchers saw only a few New Britain Kingfishers, and some vulnerable species, like the New Britain Bronzewing, Golden Masked-owl and Bismarck Thicketbird, were not seen at all.
Their results, recently published in the journal Bird Conservation International, help to inform the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species.
Robert Davis 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.
Welfare lobby’s misguided and self-defeating attack on solar
Flowers work their healing magic on the old station platforms
Millers Dale, Derbyshire A galaxy of tiny purple globes sway where once the milk churns waited for the night train to London
The old railway station in this part of Derbyshire’s Wye valley presents an astonishing happenstance of mixed colour. There is the Van Gogh yellow of the ragwort and the dark mullein spikes. There are the blended lilacs of field scabious and the rose shades from wild marjoram and over most of the area towers a canopy of greater and black knapweed flowers creating a galaxy of tiny purple globes. In the wind, all these colours sway and mingle.
My favourite of all is in the blooms of the bloody cranesbill. It is intriguing that botanists used body parts to invoke its hue while the makers of matte lipstick call the same shade “pink peony”. Look closely at the petals and they comprise fields of exquisite magenta veined with red.
Continue reading...Australia solar market heads for 12GW by 2020
GE wins South Australia tender for back-up generators
Climate change set to increase air pollution deaths by hundreds of thousands by 2100
Climate change is set to increase the amount of ground-level ozone and fine particle pollution we breathe, which leads to lung disease, heart conditions, and stroke. Less rain and more heat means this pollution will stay in the air for longer, creating more health problems.
Our research, published in Nature Climate Change, found that if climate change continues unabated, it will cause about 60,000 extra deaths globally each year by 2030, and 260,000 deaths annually by 2100, as a result of the impact of these changes on pollution.
This is the most comprehensive study to date on the effects of climate change on global air quality and health. Researchers from the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Japan and New Zealand between them used nine different global chemistry-climate models.
Most models showed an increase in likely deaths – the clearest signal yet of the harm climate change will do to air quality and human health, adding to the millions of people who die from air pollution every year.
Read more: Can we blame climate change for thunderstorm asthma?
Stagnant airClimate change fundamentally alters the air currents that move pollution across continents and between the lower and higher layers of the atmosphere. This means that where air becomes more stagnant in a future climate, pollution stays near the ground in higher concentrations.
Ground-level ozone is created when chemical pollution (such as emissions from cars or manufacturing plants) reacts in the presence of sunlight. As climate change makes an area warmer and drier, it will produce more ozone.
Fine particles are a mixture of small solids and liquid droplets suspended in air. Examples include black carbon, organic carbon, soot, smoke and dust. These fine particles, which are known to cause lung diseases, are emitted from industry, transport and residential sources. Less rain means that fine particles stay in the air for longer.
While fine particles and ozone both occur naturally, human activity has increased them substantially.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has used four different future climate scenarios, representing optimistic to pessimistic levels of emissions reduction.
In a previous study, we modelled air pollution-related deaths between 2000 and 2100 based on the most pessimistic of these scenarios. This assumes large population growth, modest improvements in emissions-reducing technology, and ineffectual climate change policy.
That earlier study found that while global deaths related to ozone increase in the future, those related to fine particles decrease markedly under this scenario.
Emissions will likely lead to deathsIn our new study, we isolated the effects of climate change on global air pollution, by using emissions from the year 2000 together with simulations of climate for 2030 and 2100.
The projected air pollutant changes due to climate change were then used in a health risk assessment model. That model takes into account population growth, how susceptible a population is to health issues and how that might change over time, and the mortality risk from respiratory and heart diseases and lung cancer.
In simulations with our nine chemistry-climate models, we found that climate change caused 14% of the projected increase in ozone-related mortality by 2100, and offset the projected decrease in deaths related to fine particles by 16%.
Our models show that premature deaths increase in all regions due to climate change, except in Africa, and are greatest in India and East Asia.
Using multiple models makes the results more robust than using a single model. There is some spread of results amongst the nine models used here, with a few models estimating that climate change may decrease air pollution-related deaths. This highlights that results from any study using a single model should be interpreted with caution.
Australia and New Zealand are both relatively unpolluted compared with countries in the Northern Hemisphere. Therefore, both ozone and fine particle pollution currently cause relatively few deaths in both countries. However, we found that under climate change the risk will likely increase.
This paper highlights that climate change will increase human mortality through changes in air pollution. These health impacts add to others that climate change will also cause, including from heat stress, severe storms and the spread of infectious diseases. By impacting air quality, climate change will likely offset the benefits of other measures to improve air quality.
Guang Zeng receives funding from the New Zealand Government's Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) through their Strategic Science Investment Fund.
Jason West receives funding from the US Environmental Protection Agency, NASA, National Science Foundation, and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.
Koch front group is putting out misleading attack ads on electric vehicles
Study finds storage prices falling faster than PV and wind technologies
Post-Brexit Britain should phase out tariffs on food, says thinktank
Policy Exchange says EU agricultural policy should be replaced by system that makes imported meat cheaper for consumers
Britain should abandon tariffs on American and Argentinian meat products after Brexit to bring consumer food prices down, according to a leading rightwing thinktank.
Policy Exchange said the UK should phase out tariffs on agricultural products, saying they raise prices and complicate trade deals, although critics say that would pave the way for hormone-treated beef or chlorine-washed chickens, currently banned under EU law, to reach British supermarket shelves.
Continue reading...Niagara Falls: Smelly black water shocks visitors
How to know what you're getting when you buy free-range eggs
Last week, egg producer Snowdale Holdings was penalised A$1 million for falsely labelling their eggs as free-range. Snowdale, one of the biggest producers in the Australian market, owns brands including Eggs by Ellah, Swan Valley Free Range, and Wanneroo Free Range.
Given the significantly higher prices generally charged for free-range eggs, you could be forgiven for having doubts over what you’re getting in the supermarket. Even when egg cartons are legally accurate, the government definition of “free range” might not mean what you think it does.
But you don’t need to shop blind: there are a range of resources that can help you find egg producers that follow best-practise standards, avoid farming practices that concern you and understand what government guidelines really mean.
Read more: the reason people buy free-range eggs (other than animal welfare)
What’s in an egg label?Previous research has shown that people buy free-range eggs for a range of reasons, including taste and quality, as well as concern for animal welfare.
But unlike other labels such as nutritional information panels or best-before dates, the “free-range” claim is not regulated by Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ). In fact, no claims about production methods are subject to this kind of regulation. Food labelling regulation by FSANZ is about what a food contains, rather than how it is produced.
Eggs by Ellah, owned by Snowdale Holdings.
Alpha/Flickr, CC BY-NC
However, there is an Australian definition of “free-range”, created in March 2016 under Australian consumer law. Essentially, it means that the chickens have “meaningful and regular access to the outdoors” and that outdoor stocking densities are no more than 10,000 birds per hectare.
This has been hotly debated, with animal welfare and consumer groups arguing that this is not what most people would consider free-range, while producer groups have supported the standard.
The new regulations also requires producers to “prominently disclose” the outdoor stocking density, and we are now starting to see that on packaging.
What does free-range really mean?In practice, stocking chooks at 10,000 per hectare and giving them regular access to the outdoors, might not result in animals that are especially free (or “cruelty-free” – another claim showing up on an increasing number of egg cartons).
Read more: free-range egg labelling scrambles the message for consumers
For a start, CSIRO has published a code of practice for animal welfare that recommends farmers should have no more than 1,500 birds per hectare. If you want to buy from producers that meet that standard, the consumer group Choice has an app called CluckAR that can scan egg cartons in the store and give immediate feedback on the brand’s farming conditions.
Choice also provides a table of free-range egg producers. Reading that table – and from my own discussions with Australian egg producers – it’s clear that price is not a totally reliable indicator of stocking density.
However, stocking density is only one factor in how hens are treated. Some independent certifications have more stringent guidelines. The Australian Certified Organic Standard, as well as specifying a maximum of 1,500 birds per hectare for set stocking systems and 2,500 for rotational systems, also prohibits practices like withholding feed and water to induce moulting.
The Australian Organic certification indicates a lower stocking density, and more stringent cruelty-free practises, than the government definition of ‘free range’.
Australian Certified Organic
Hens naturally moult in autumn, when they lose significant body weight and stop laying eggs while their reproductive tract rejuvenates. For greater control over when hens produce eggs, as well as extending their hens’ laying lives, farmers can induce moulting by reducing their feed, or withholding food altogether for certain periods. Although heavily regulated at the state level in Australia (hens may not go without food entirely for more than 24 hours), it is considered cruel by animal welfare groups.
Similarly Humane Choice recommends a maximum of 1,500 birds per hectare. And unlike the government definition of free-range, which calls for “meaningful and regular” access to the outside, Humane Choice standards specify that hens can “forage on the land, move untethered and uncaged”.
Of course, it is important to note that free-range farms are not free of animal welfare issues, such as feather pecking, where hens pull out the feathers of other birds. There are further challenges is managing exposure to weather or predators to consider. Caged-egg producers argue that consumers should be able to choose from a range of production methods.
However, if animal welfare, sustainability, and labelling are things that you are concerned about, then do your own research and identify the products that align with your values. Don’t rely on a label to tell you what is ethical.
Heather Bray's salary is partly funded by an Australian Research Council Linkage Project (LP130100419) which includes contributions from industry partners Coles Group Ltd, Elders Limited, Richard Gunner’s Fine Meats Pty Ltd, and the South Australian Research and Development Institute. She is currently undertaking consultancy work for Animal Health Australia. She received scholarships from the Pig Research and Development Corporation (now Australian Pork Limited) between 1991 and 1997. The University of Adelaide is a partner in the Animal Welfare Science Centre.
Suicides of nearly 60,000 Indian farmers linked to climate change, study claims
Rising temperatures and the resultant stress on India’s agricultural sector may have contributed to increase in suicides over the past 30 years, research shows
Climate change may have contributed to the suicides of nearly 60,000 Indian farmers and farm workers over the past three decades, according to new research that examines the toll rising temperatures are already taking on vulnerable societies.
Illustrating the extreme sensitivity of the Indian agricultural industry to spikes in temperature, the study from the University of California, Berkeley, found an increase of just 1C on an average day during the growing season was associated with 67 more suicides.
Continue reading...Engels’ view on the loss of public space | Letters
The contradictions of Friedrich Engels’ newly installed statue looking down on the private “public” space of Tony Wilson Place would not have escaped the young man living in 1840s Manchester. Privatisation of public land by stealth (The insidious creep of London’s pseudo-public land, 24 July) is subtly altering access to the city and its amenities. Ambiguous road markings and street signs confuse the public, maximising the landowners’ profits and discriminating against people with disabilities. Close to Engels’ statue a penalty notice was issued for using a blue badge on a street without road markings – notices on building hoardings apparently overruled the absence of yellow lines and the rights of the disabled. In Spinningfields £100 penalties are threatened for stopping cars anywhere, without defining what constitutes “stopping”. Local councils and elected mayors must move quickly to enforce the same regulations on private space as those in public space, make private landowners accountable, end discriminatory practices and be fully open about changing land ownership.
Bob Dinn
Manchester
• Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
Continue reading...How to avoid being bitten by a snake – and what to do if you are
Summer is the peak season for attacks by the UK’s only venomous snake, the common European adder. We asked a toxicology expert for the dos and don’ts
As any six-year-old will tell you, there is only one venomous snake native to Britain: Vipera berus, AKA the common European adder. Still, it can give you a nasty bite, and doctors have warned that bite victims are walking into a world of pain by not getting help soon enough.
“I’m astonished by the number of people who know they’ve been bitten but just go home,” says Michael Eddleston, a professor of clinical toxicology at the University of Edinburgh and a snake expert. “Then they wake up with massive swelling, when treatment is far less effective.”
Continue reading...Planet has just 5% chance of reaching Paris climate goal, study says
Researchers find that economic, emissions and population trends point to very small chance Earth will avoid warming more than 2C by century’s end
There is only a 5% chance that the Earth will avoid warming by at least 2C come the end of the century, according to new research that paints a sobering picture of the international effort to stem dangerous climate change.
Related: Bill Nye: 'You can shoot the messenger but climate is still changing'
Continue reading...2017 is so far the second-hottest year on record thanks to global warming | Dana Nuccitelli
2017 is behind only El Niño-amplified 2016.
With the first six months of 2017 in the books, average global surface temperatures so far this year are 0.94°C above the 1950–1980 average, according to NASA. That makes 2017 the second-hottest first six calendar months on record, behind only 2016.
That’s remarkable because 2017 hasn’t had the warming influence of an El Niño event. El Niños bring warm ocean water to the surface, temporarily causing average global surface temperatures to rise. 2016 – including the first six months of the year – was influenced by one of the strongest El Niño events on record.
Continue reading...Culling of Scotland's mountain hares should be banned, says charity
Death rates of hares native to Highlands are not monitored and animals are widely persecuted for sport, OneKind says
Unregulated culling of Scotland’s mountain hares should be banned and the species protected, according to a report that says shooting the animals for sport is inhumane and uncontrolled.
Landowners can shoot the hares without a licence from August to February and claim culls are necessary to protect game, especially red grouse, from disease.
Saving the world's wildlife is not just 'a white person thing'
The conservation sector is dominated by white faces, and for many people it looks a bit like colonialism. It’s time for new voices to take up the fight
In a few days it will be the 18th anniversary of the death of Michael Werikhe, the enigmatic African conservationist. You don’t hear or read much of him these days.
Nicknamed “the Rhino Man” because his work and campaigns focused on the critically endangered black rhino, Werikhe’s main campaign tactic of choice was walking to raise awareness. His first walk, starting on Christmas Day 1982, took him from Mombasa to the Kenyan capital Nairobi – a distance of 484 kilometres – and lasted for 27 days. He later walked in East Africa, Europe and North America to raise awareness and money, raising nearly $1m and covering nearly 5,000km.
Continue reading...Swapping cars for bikes, not diesel for electric, is the best route to clean air
Cycling can be a huge part of the fight to tackle city air pollution. Tim Burns of Sustrans explains how their Active Travel Toolbox can help us get there
The government’s air quality plan may make our air more breathable in the long run but it fails to tackle some of the biggest issues facing cities and towns in the UK, and more people on bikes are a huge part of the answer.
At the heart of the plan is a move to ban all new diesel and petrol vans and cars from 2040, alongside a range of measures to support the electric car market and retrofit existing vehicles. It remains to be seen if the plan will be an effective measure to improve air quality, but it is almost guaranteed that this will be another missed opportunity to think about how we move about and live in cities and towns.
Continue reading...Seals going swimmingly in the greater Thames estuary
The river was once biologically dead but seals are back and a population survey will help guard against threats from disease and dredging
“It’s a good news story,” says zoologist Anna-Christina Cucknell, as she watches seals glide smoothly through the water, their dark eyes watchful as their heads swivel like periscopes. “In the 1950s, the Thames was declared biologically dead. But the seals are coming back.”
Cucknell will lead a land, air and sea survey of the seals in the greater Thames estuary which begins on Monday, including the harbour seals she is watching in the mouth of the river Stour, a short boat trip from Ramsgate marina.
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