The Guardian
Keepers of the flame: fire fishing in Taiwan - in pictures
The number of boats using the traditional fire fishing method in Jinshan, Taiwan, has fallen from 300 to just three. The remaining fishermen have a seasonal window from May to July when they can catch sardines using fire, a practice that dates back hundreds of years
Continue reading...Leave vote makes UK's transition to clean energy harder, say experts
Analysts say Brexit will create uncertainty for energy sector, which could hit £20bn investment a year needed to replace ageing, dirty power plants
The UK’s challenge to build a clean, secure and affordable energy system has become significantly harder amid the political and economic turmoil following the nation’s vote to leave the European Union.
Higher customer bills and delayed or cancelled projects are expected by experts, the most pessimistic of whom warn of the lights going out. The optimists argue that the global rush towards clean energy and strong domestic UK climate change targets can keep the transition to clean, green energy moving forward.
Continue reading...Marine rescue crews work to help entangled blue whale in California – video
Rescuers off the coast of southern California work to help a blue whale which had become entangled in fishing gear. The whale, said to measure between 70ft (21 metres) and 80ft (24 metres) long, appeared around 5 miles (8km) off the coast of Dana Point. It was not immediately clear to the marine crews whether they had succeeded in detangling the whale before it disappeared
Continue reading...Diligent insects in the summer garden
Allendale, Northumberland There’s a low hum from bumblebees foraging deep inside the comfrey flowers
The day presses down, close and sultry, as I sit cross-legged in front of our three compost bins. There’s a low hum from bumblebees foraging deep inside the nearby comfrey flowers, but I’m interested in a different type of bee. In front of the wooden bins are some large stone slabs, the thumb-width gaps between them unmortared. There, coming and going, are several large black bees. One lands on my trousers, brushing golden pollen from its body on to the hairs of its hind legs. With pollen sac neatly packed, it flies to the edge of the paving and slips beneath the lip.
The chocolate mining bee, Andrena scotica, is often found in gardens; firm sandy paths and terraces are favourite nesting places. They are solitary bees, the females laying eggs in separate burrows but sharing a common entrance hole. Each egg will hatch into a larva, eat the stored pollen and pupate before emerging as an adult.
Continue reading...US, Canada and Mexico pledge 50% of power from clean energy by 2025
Barack Obama, Justin Trudeau and Enrique Peña Nieto to announce new ‘aggressive but achievable’ goal at ‘Three Amigos’ summit in Ottawa
Barack Obama, Justin Trudeau and Enrique Peña Nieto will commit to a new regional clean power goal at a summit this week in Ottawa, the White House has said.
The leaders of the US, Canada and Mexico, meeting on Wednesday at the so-called “Three Amigos” summit, will pledge to have their countries produce 50% of their power by 2025 from hydropower, wind, solar and nuclear plants, carbon capture and storage, as well as from energy efficiency measures.
Continue reading...Voters approve controversial French airport relocation
Majority in the local referendum on the Nantes Atlantique airport ends long battle between environmental activists and the government
Voters in western France gave the go-ahead Sunday to a controversial airport development that has been at the centre of a years-long battle between environmental activists and the government.
The local referendum on the new Nantes Atlantique airport passed with a 55% majority, ending a 50-year argument that saw the government’s environment advisers resign in 2014.
Authorities argue that the new airport will provide a major boost to tourism in western France, but environmental campaigners have fiercely opposed the plans to build it on protected swampland just outside Nantes.
Related: Nantes airport: thousand-strong protest over farmer eviction court hearings
Continue reading...The inter-generational theft of Brexit and climate change | Dana Nuccitelli
Youth will bear the brunt of the poor decisions being made by today’s older generations
In last week’s Brexit vote results, there was a tremendous divide between age groups. 73% of voters under the age of 25 voted to remain in the EU, while about 58% over the age of 45 voted to leave.
How does Thursday's referendum vote break down? #Brexit #EURefResults https://t.co/ArbedCgHDr pic.twitter.com/XPIdg0s8HP
Continue reading...Chapeau! Stylish cycling gear for the road
From action cameras to heads-up displays, we select gear to propel you to the front of the peloton this season
• Filament: a custom carbon-fibre bicycle made for one
Continue reading...Unfettered heathlands of the New Forest
Country diary: Dibden Purlieu Dusty paths of sun-baked sand provide firm routes into the heathland, widened by walkers seeking peace in the green lung of the forest
West of Dibden Purlieu, isolated from the invasive residential tendrils of the Waterside communities by the teeming bypass, the heathland of the New Forest spreads away almost unfettered. If you choose, as I often have, you can roam for a dozen miles without encountering more than a few minor roads.
A few hundred metres from the village you are already in mature woodland – conifers planted in the 1960s are now being selectively felled, allowing the understorey of holly and birch to break upwards into the canopy. The fences around the plantation have gone now, the edges blurred – managed but no longer strictly linear. Dusty paths of sun-baked sand provide firm routes on into the heathland, some much widened since my last visit by the traffic from walkers seeking peace in the green lung of the forest.
Continue reading...Global air pollution crisis 'must not be left to private sector'
Energy authority says governments must take responsibility, and investment would pay for itself in health benefits
The global air pollution crisis killing more than 6 million people a year must be tackled by governments as a matter of urgency and not just left to the private sector, a report from the world’s leading energy authority says.
An increase of investment in energy of about 7% a year could tackle the problem, and would pay for itself through health benefits and better social conditions, the International Energy Agency estimates.
Continue reading...Spring spread more slowly across UK in 2016 – Woodland Trust
Spawning frogs, arrival of swallows and first oak leaves took four weeks rather than three to spread from south to north
Signs of a British spring including spawning frogs, the arrival of migrating swallows and the first leaves on oak trees took a week longer to spread across the UK this year than in the last two decades, according to nature watchers.
A mild winter saw spring flowers out earlier than usual, and signs of spring such as hawthorn leafing and red admiral butterflies on the wing on Christmas Day.
Continue reading...Winds and heavy showers take their toll of insect life: Country diary 100 years ago
Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 1 July 1916
Surrey, June 30
The chill west winds and heavy showers take their toll of insect life. You miss the small blue butterflies on the downs, most delicate of the lesser things that fly in dozens, with slight wings that the sun shines through and tinges with all kinds of hues; two or three come carried along by the wind and escape the big drops for fifty yards or so. Then they are struck down on to the dripping bents and there is nothing left in the air but groups of gnats which seem able to enjoy summer in any kind of weather. But lift the wild clematis that just here covers all the hedge, and there are all kinds of live things sheltering in warmth. A meadow pipit goes out twittering, while a robin merely perches a little distance off and eyes you; speckled butterflies chase away, stag beetles crawl, and a brown lappet moth, disturbed before its hour, sails as best it can over the hedge.
An hour later, when the clouds and the wind have gone, everything changes. Insects on the wing seem to have recovered life, they are so many; the cuckoo spit appears as if from nowhere in the hollows of a hundred budding flowers and frosts the honeysuckle bloom; gauze-flies are in the thistles; the light fluffy fruit of the dandelion wafts across and settles on the wild convolvulus; the quaking grass shivers, although the leaves of the overgrown stitchwort betray no sign of a breeze; and the swallows go higher and higher as they circle in the red light of coming sundown. Now song breaks out again; you hear it coming up from the small wood beside the broad field where the wheat is just losing its flower.
Continue reading...UK food prices set to rise after Brexit vote
Plunging pound and Britain’s reliance on imports will mean higher prices, says farmers’ leader
Food prices are likely to go up as a short-term consequence of Britain’s voting to leave the EU, owing to the UK’s dependence on imports, according to the president of the National Farmers Union.
Meurig Raymond said the EU referendum result had been a “political car crash” and that UK farmers who receive up to £3bn in subsidies from the EU each year were headed into “uncharted waters”.
How the dormouse is returning to England’s hedgerows after 100 years
Moves to save the tiny woodland mammal from extinction could herald the reintroduction of larger lost species such as the wolf and sea eagle
More than 100 years after they were last recorded by Victorian naturalists in Yorkshire’s Wensleydale valley, rare dormice have returned to a secret woodland location there.
Last Thursday, 20 breeding pairs of rare hazel dormice (Muscardinus avellanarius) were reintroduced in the Yorkshire Dales national park as part of a national scheme to reverse the decline of one of Britain’s most threatened mammals.
Continue reading...The eco guide to having a drink
Is having a pint ethically unconscientious? What’s the carbon footprint of getting drunk? Time to uncork the issues
At the risk of channelling Al Murray’s Pub Landlord, the great British boozer is brilliantly ethical in some respects. In fact, the New Economics Foundation says your local is one of the top places in which to spend money on the high street if you want it to stay local. And now, in an effort to make watering holes ethical powerhouses, the Greener Retailing Publicans Guide has just launched. The report, which also identifies ways in which pubs, restaurants and bars can become more profitable, goes strong on tackling food waste, which costs UK pubs £357m a year. It reckons they easily waste at least £1,000 each year in spilled pints, too.
This matters not just because it’s waste, but because a lot of water and energy is required to convert one gallon of water into one gallon of beer, whisky or wine. Brands are looking to do something to address these environmental pressures. Heineken recently opened the world’s first “major zero-carbon brewery” in Austria, and everyone from whisky makers to cideries is trying to curtail their demand for clean water.
Continue reading...Great Barrier Reef: scientists ask Malcolm Turnbull to curb fossil fuel use
International Society for Reef Studies presidents say prime minister should prioritise reef after ‘devastating’ damage
As the largest international gathering of coral reef experts comes to a close, scientists have written to the Australian prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, calling for action to save the world’s reefs.
The letter was sent to Turnbull on Saturday imploring his government to do more to conserve the nation’s reefs and curb fossil fuel consumption.
Continue reading...Hardwood from illegal logging makes its way into UK stores
British shoppers could be unknowingly buying wooden furniture, flooring and even food items that are byproducts of destructive illegal logging in the Amazon, environmental campaigners are warning.
Friends of the Earth is calling on ministers to make companies reveal the source of their products in order to stop the black market trade. Last week human rights watchdog Global Witness revealed that 185 environmental activists were killed in 2015, many of whom had been trying to stop illegal logging in the Amazon. An estimated 80% of Brazilian hardwood is illegally logged.
Continue reading...Hebden Bridge flood victims finally get their Christmas dinner
People in West Yorkshire enjoyed their Christmas dinner yesterday, six months after floods inundated homes along the Calder valley.
After unprecedented rainfall last December the river Calder burst its banks, flooding the market town of Hebden Bridge and the village of Mytholmroyd, forcing residents to abandon their Christmas festivities.
Continue reading...EU out vote puts UK commitment to Paris climate agreement in doubt
Leave victory risks delaying EU ratification of the Paris deal, leaving the door open for Obama’s successor to unpick the pact
The UK government won high praise six months ago for taking a leading role in the successful Paris climate change agreement, the first legally binding commitment on curbing carbon emissions by all 195 United Nations countries.
With the vote to leave the EU, the UK’s future participation in that landmark accord is now in doubt.
Continue reading...How can we make Brexit work for the environment? | Craig Bennett
Leaving the EU puts about 70% of UK environmental safeguards at risk. But Brexit is not a mandate to make us the dirty man of Europe again – we have to make it work for the environment, from the grassroots up
And so, Brexit has happened. I, like many people reading this, feel desperately sad today.
Friends of the Earth campaigned vigorously to remain in the EU. Membership of Europe has been good for our ‘green and pleasant land’, and the plain truth is that pollution doesn’t recognise national boundaries. It seems obvious to me that the best way of solving anything other than very local environmental problems is for countries to cooperate and develop solutions under a common framework.
Continue reading...