The Guardian
Slow burn? The long road to a zero-emissions UK
It is the near future. You wake in a house warmed by a heat pump that extracts energy from deep below the ground and delivers it to your home. (Your gas boiler was outlawed years ago.) You rise and make yourself a cup of tea – from water boiled on a hydrogen-burning kitchen stove. Then you head to work – in a robot-driven electric car directed by central control network to avoid traffic jams.
At midday, you pause for lunch: a sandwich made of meat grown in a laboratory. At the end of the day, you are taken home by a robot car – through countryside festooned with solar panels and turbines.
Continue reading...A zero-emissions UK is a huge task. But the benefits will also be huge
Major action is needed to achieve zero net emissions by 2050. But it will make Britain’s economy cleaner, smarter and more efficient. We must not delay
Britain needs to reach, by no later than 2050, net zero emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. This means any greenhouse gases we release must be balanced by the removal of an equivalent amount from the atmosphere.
The 2050 deadline represents our fair share of international responsibility for implementing the Paris agreement on climate change and meeting its goal of holding the rise in average global temperature to well below 2C – and pursuing best efforts to limit warming to no more than 1.5C.
Continue reading...Stroud, the gentle Cotswold town that spawned a radical protest
It is a quiet Good Friday on Stroud’s steep, sun-dappled high street. There are none of the usual stalls spilling out of the centuries-old Shambles indoor market, and the schools are closed for the Easter holidays.
But the Cotswold town’s independent cafes are bustling with tanned and exhausted Extinction Rebellion Stroudies, who have spent the week bringing parts of London to a standstill and focusing minds on the threats posed by climate breakdown.
Continue reading...Battle to save frogs from global killer disease
Frogs, salamanders, and toads across the world are now under attack from a widening range of interacting pathogens that threaten to devastate global amphibian populations.
That is the stark warning of leading zoological experts who will gather this week in London in a bid to establish an emergency plan to save these endangered creatures. “The world’s amphibians are facing a new crisis, one that is caused by attacks by multiple pathogens,” said Professor Trent Garner of the Zoological Society of London, which is hosting the conference. “We desperately need to devise strategies that can protect them.”
Continue reading...Extinction Rebellion protests: police start to clear Oxford Circus
Met police draft in 200 extra officers to deal with Extinction Rebellion campaign in London
Officers have begun to clear protesters from Oxford Circus as the Metropolitan police try to restore normality to parts of London where Extinction Rebellion members have been campaigning against climate change.
Crowds clapped and cheered as activists who were chained to the road at Oxford Circus were lifted into police vans.
Continue reading...Police drag climate change activists near Regent Street in London - video
As Extinction Rebellion protesters and police tussle for control of Oxford Circus, video has emerged of officers dragging two participants along the ground near Regent Street on Friday. The Met has come under increasing pressure to crack down on the demonstrators who have blocked transport networks in the capital in recent days. Extinction Rebellion has called for non-violent civil disobedience to oblige the British government to reduce net greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2025 and stop what they call a global climate crisis.
Continue reading...Extreme weather, loud birds and fresh food by boat – could you live on a remote island?
The wardens of Britain’s small islands talk about daily life with little more than thousands of puffins for company. By Patrick Barkham. Photographs by Alex Ingram
After supper, while Eddie Stubbings was washing up, huge flocks of puffins would come whirling past his kitchen window. Later, when the sun had finally dipped into the ocean, the Skomer night filled with the bizarre caterwauling of 350,000 pairs of manx shearwaters, which fly under the cover of darkness to burrows dotted across the small island.
“Living on the island was absolutely amazing,” says Stubbings, 40. Alongside his partner, Bee Bueche, 41, he has completed six years working on Skomer, 720 acres of seabird-populated rocks off the Pembrokeshire coast.
Continue reading...Police arrest climate change protesters on London’s Oxford Circus – video
A young climate change activist who had superglued his hands to the mast of the pink boat occupying London's Oxford Circus was removed and arrested on Friday as part of police efforts to stop the blockade and remove the boat from the street. The Metropolitan police has come under increasing pressure to crack down on the Extinction Rebellion demonstrators who have blocked transport networks in the capital in recent days. Police said on Friday that more than 600 arrests had been made relating to the protest.
Extinction Rebellion have called for non-violent civil disobedience to oblige the British government to reduce net greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2025 and stop what they call a global climate crisis.
Our leaders are ignoring global warming to the point of criminal negligence. It's unforgivable | Tim Winton
Humanity survived the cold war because no one pushed the button. On climate change, the button has been pushed again and again
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I’ve been asking myself a question – and even posing it makes me queasy.
Is it too late – are we beyond saving?
Continue reading...Climate group reports influx of support as Extinction Rebellion protests continue
Police seize Extinction Rebellion boat as organisers plan to extend London action
Extinction Rebellion activists reported an influx of supporters on Friday, as the Easter holiday, balmy weather and promises of support from school strike leader Greta Thunberg injected new momentum into the weeklong climate protest.
Despite more than 100 arrests on Friday, taking the total to 682 by early evening, the demonstration which has blocked four major London landmarks looked set to continue beyond the weekend, with organisers preparing to extend their disruption on Monday to “picnics on the motorway.”
Continue reading...Extinction Rebellion protests: photos from day five
Guardian picture editors select the best photos from the fifth day of climate protests in London
Continue reading...The week in wildlife – in pictures
Mating grouses, grousing mates, a final turtle and a newborn giraffe
Half of UK consumers willing to pay more to avoid plastic packaging
Exclusive: eight in 10 trying to cut plastic waste and 46% feel guilty about it, survey shows
Eight in 10 consumers are trying to reduce their plastic waste and half would be willing to pay higher prices for eco-friendly packaging, according to a survey that highlights the impact of the Blue Planet documentary and the campaign to reduce such rubbish.
The research by YouGov shows 46% of people in the UK feel guilty about the amount of plastic they use, which is motivating them to consider changes in their behaviour, including paying more so companies will find alternatives to single-use plastics.
Continue reading...Amazon's trees get taste of air of the future
Experiment aims to learn how rainforest copes in levels of CO2 that could be normal by 2050
An ambitious experiment deep in the Amazon rainforest aims to find out how the ecosystem is likely to respond to rising levels of carbon dioxide.
In 2000 a research team at the UK’s Hadley Centre forecast that a combination of reduced rainfall and higher temperatures caused by global warming could decimate the Amazon by the end of the century. But the following decade another Hadley Centre team concluded that this scenario was unlikely.
Continue reading...Greta Thunberg hopes to join climate protests during London visit
Swedish 16-year-old, who is taking campaign to parliament, keen to be part of Extinction Rebellion action
Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old founder of the school strikes for action against climate change, has said she hopes to join the Extinction Rebellion protests when she visits London next week.
The Swedish activist will also take the campaign to the UK parliament, where she will speak to dozens of MPs including the Green party co-leader Caroline Lucas, the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, and the environment secretary, Michael Gove.
Continue reading...Extinction Rebellion stages youth protest at Heathrow airport
Activists born after 1990 gather at key roundabout to highlight dangers of climate change
Youth activists have taken the Extinction Rebellion protests to Heathrow on the fifth day of action, demonstrating beside the main roundabout on the road to the airport.
The activists, all born after 1990, unfurled a banner asking: “Are we the the last generation?” as dozens of police prevented them from blocking the road.
Continue reading...Huge plans to expand Iceland's fish farms risk decimating wild fish populations
Scientists are warning against new legislation to grow Iceland’s fish farming industry, but industry is pressuring for a go-ahead
A five-fold expansion in open net fish farms that scientists believe could decimate Iceland’s wild salmon stocks is pitting Big Aquaculture against ecologists in the country.
Next month, a parliamentary bill is expected to extend farm licenses from 10 to 16 years, while omitting critics from oversight panels and handing primary monitoring powers to industry.
Continue reading...Extinction Rebellion and Attenborough put climate in spotlight
New bulletins are leading on global warming and the BBC is shedding some of its ‘balance’
With Extinction Rebellion making headlines and Sir David Attenborough broadcasting The Facts on BBC One, climate change has gone mainstream this Easter. A nation has been watching protesters glue themselves to trains, turn London’s roads into gardens and actively invite arrest in their hundreds.
As a media strategy it is working. How did glueing yourself to a train highlight climate change, Radio 4’s Today presenter Nick Robinson asked Dr Gail Bradbrook, an Extinction Rebellion co-founder. “It gets you on the Today programme,” she replied.
Continue reading...Extinction Rebellion activists stop coal train in Brisbane
Climate change protesters face charges after railway line blocked near port
One protester is in custody and another was taken to hospital after Extinction Rebellion activists stepped in front of a moving coal train headed for the Port of Brisbane.
The train driver was forced to slam on the emergency brakes after a group of protesters climbed on to the freight tracks in Wynnum on Thursday afternoon, police said.
Continue reading...Scotland Yard defends response to climate change protests
Met comes under pressure to crack down on the Extinction Rebellion demonstrators
Scotland Yard has defended its response to the rolling protests in London that have caused disruption to millions and pushed climate change towards the top of the national news agenda.
The Metropolitan police has come under increasing pressure to crack down on the Extinction Rebellion demonstrators who have blocked transport networks in the capital in recent days; not least from the home secretary, Sajid Javid, who has urged officers to “take a firm stance”.
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