The Guardian
Walkers to recycle crisp packets after postal protest
Snack maker will install collection points across UK as well as free courier service
Walkers has said a scheme to recycle its plastic crisp packets is not a publicity stunt but a genuine attempt to address environmental concerns.
The company launched the initiative after a social media campaign titled #PacketInWalkers urged the company to make its packaging recyclable. Consumers published pictures of themselves online posting empty crisp packets addressed to Walkers, forcing Royal Mail to urge protesters to put the packets in an envelope before posting them.
Continue reading...From freecycling to Fairphones: 24 ways to lead an anti-capitalist life in a capitalist world
We asked readers for their thoughts on ‘non‑capitalist living’ and were deluged with replies. Here are their ideas for everyday ways to buck the system
As the new Amazon advert goes, can you feel it? Amid the encroaching dark and increasingly foul weather, December is synonymous with stampedes to the supermarket, endless online clicks and the massed roar of delivery lorries – or, to be reductive about it, capitalism at its most joyful and triumphant.
Clearly, though, such things are only part of who we are, even at this time of year. As the American activist Rebecca Solnit puts it in her short but brilliant book Hope in the Dark: “Vast amounts of how we live our everyday lives – our interactions with and commitments to family lives, friendships, avocations, membership in social, spiritual and political organisations – are in essence non-capitalist or even anti-capitalist, full of things we do for free, out of love and on principle.”
Continue reading...Tackle climate or face financial crash, say world's biggest investors
UN summit urged to end all coal burning and introduce substantial taxes on emissions
Global investors managing $32tn issued a stark warning to governments at the UN climate summit on Monday, demanding urgent cuts in carbon emissions and the phasing out of all coal burning. Without these, the world faces a financial crash several times worse than the 2008 crisis, they said.
The investors include some of the world’s biggest pension funds, insurers and asset managers and marks the largest such intervention to date. They say fossil fuel subsidies must end and substantial taxes on carbon be introduced.
Continue reading...Act now to prevent an environmental catastrophe | Letter
In our complex, interdependent global ecosystem, life is dying, with species extinction accelerating. The climate crisis is worsening much faster than previously predicted. Every single day 200 species are becoming extinct. This desperate situation can’t continue.
Political leaders worldwide are failing to address the environmental crisis. If global corporate capitalism continues to drive the international economy, global catastrophe is inevitable.
Continue reading...Swift parrot habitat vital for survival of species could be destroyed by dam
Environment minister will rule if Tasmanian forest that is home to the critically endangered parrot can be bulldozed
Tasmanian forest considered important for the survival of the critically endangered swift parrot may be bulldozed to build a dam for a fish farm and golf course development.
Glamorgan Spring Bay Council, on Tasmania’s east coast, wants to clear about 40ha of what scientists say is critical swift parrot breeding and foraging habitat to develop a 3,000m-litre-a-year dam near the town of Orford. The environment minister, Melissa Price, will now decide whether the proposal goes ahead.
Continue reading...Largest ever group of global investors call for more action to meet Paris targets
The group of 414 institutional investors with $31 trillion under management say governments must take serious steps to cut emissions
The largest ever group of institutional investors has called on governments around the world to urgently increase their efforts to meet the Paris climate change agreement goals.
The 414 global investors - which represent US$31 trillion of assets-under-management - say they are deeply concerned about the “ambition gap” that exists between governments’ commitments and what is needed to limit the global temperature increase to well below 2C above pre-industrial levels.
Continue reading...US and Russia ally with Saudi Arabia to water down climate pledges
Move shocks delegates at UN conference as ministers fly in for final week of climate talks
The US and Russia have thrown climate talks into disarray by allying with Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to water down approval of a landmark report on the need to keep global warming below 1.5C.
After a heated two-and-a-half-hour debate on Saturday night, the backwards step by the four major oil producers shocked delegates at the UN climate conference in Katowice as ministers began to fly in for the final week of high-level discussions.
Continue reading...How billions of discarded Tetra Paks cover Vietnam's beaches and towns | Corinne Redfern
More than 8bn Tetra Paks are sold every year in Vietnam – and only a few percent are recycled. It’s having a devastating effect on the environment
It takes 45 minutes to pick up all the milk cartons that have washed up on Long Hai beach overnight. “I feel like all I do is collect them,” says Nguyen Thi Ngoc Tham, gesturing towards the quiet length of sand that fronts her beach house in the south of Vietnam. “I fill about three or four bags every morning, but then there will be a big wave, and when I look back over my shoulder the sand is covered again.”
Continue reading...'Park not paddock': bushwalkers complete epic 36-day protest over brumbies
Protesters walk from Sydney to Mt Kosciuszko to draw attention to increasing damage feral horses are doing to national park
It is not a precise way to measure public sentiment. But as five seasoned bushwalkers made their way on foot through the New South Wales deputy premier John Barilaro’s electorate of Monaro, taking several days to reach Charlotte Pass before hiking up Mt Kosciuszko itself, they received more words of encouragement and support than opposition to their message.
The walkers were walking in protest against legislation shepherded through the NSW parliament by Barilaro in June that declared feral horses, or brumbies, a protected heritage species in Kosciuszko national park.
Continue reading...Turnbull challenged to give evidence at Senate inquiry into $444m reef grant
Labor senator Kristina Keneally says the former prime minister can pick a time and place to appear for questioning
Malcolm Turnbull has been offered his pick of time and place to front a Senate inquiry into a controversial $444m grant given to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation.
While the former prime minister is not obliged to attend, Labor Senator Kristina Keneally wants him to appear for questioning.
Continue reading...Bitterns, curlews and lapwings at risk as vital wildlife funds dry up
They are some of the most elusive birds to nest in the UK. Indeed, they hide so well in their reedbed homes that ornithologists can only estimate bittern numbers by counting the sources of the booming sounds made by males in summer. It is a census that has produced alarming results. Only 11 booming bitterns were counted across the country in the 1990s.
But since then the bittern has begun to bounce back – thanks to a remarkable system of EU environment awards called Life grants. One of these, worth €3.9m (£3.5m), has helped ecologists restore the bittern’s reedbeds in South and West Yorkshire and rebuild bittern numbers.
Continue reading...Airlines ignoring efficient planes in blow to carbon targets – study
TUI Airways comes top of 2018 Atmosfair Airline Index while Virgin Atlantic ranks 83rd
Airlines are failing to take up the most efficient planes in sufficient numbers to make a significant dent in their carbon dioxide emissions, a new study has found.
The most efficient new aircraft models, such as the Boeing 787-9 and Airbus A350-900 and A320neo, can achieve substantial carbon savings over older models, but no airlines have invested sufficiently in the new types to reach the top levels of energy efficiency, according to a ranking by Atmosfair, a German NGO.
Continue reading...'We live in a lobstocracy': Maine town is feeling the effects of climate change
When lobsters are life, environmental change affects livelihoods, and warming waters will ultimately bust the lobster industry
The American lobster is a symbol of Maine, central to the state’s ethos and economy.
Its image appears on license plates, restaurant signs and clothing. It is sold alive, with its claws banded shut, on docks, at highway rest stops and supermarkets. Cooked, it is served everywhere from seaside shacks to the finest restaurants.
Continue reading...'It's medieval': why some cows are still living most of their lives tied up | Tom Levitt
A farming practice where cows are tethered and restricted to sitting or standing is still commonplace, particularly in southern Germany. Now farming groups are calling for a ban
Jürgen Weber points to a lesion on the hind leg of one of his cows, a common health problem in “tie stalls”, where the animals are kept permanently restrained in one position. His herd of 30 cows face each other in two rows inside the dim, low-ceilinged barn on the side of the family home in the town of Boxberg, in the southern German state of Baden-Württemberg.
In a farming system criticised as “medieval”, each cow is held in place by a chain or strap around her neck, which restricts movement to standing or sitting. Food and water is brought to the cow, although some farmers untether the animals and allow them into a yard or on pasture for part of the day or during summer months.
Continue reading...Any Trump infrastructure deal must tackle climate change, Democrats warn
- Trump seeking $1bn package to upgrade road, rail and bridges
- Senator Chuck Schumer issues condition for Democrat support
Democrats will only support an infrastructure deal with Donald Trump if it includes measures to combat climate change, the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, has warned.
In an op-ed in the Washington Post and a letter to Trump, the New York Democrat said that his party “will have an extraordinary opportunity to force action on climate change” after taking control of the House of Representatives in the recent midterm elections.
Continue reading...The week in wildlife – in pictures
An African wild dog preparing for a hunt and a male mimic poison frog transporting a tadpole are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world
Continue reading...UK children face winter health crisis due to pollution, say doctors
Toxic air and cold weather could create deadly conditions and stretch NHS, medics say
Thousands of children are facing hospital this winter as cold weather and the UK’s air pollution crisis combine to create potentially deadly conditions for young people, doctors have warned.
The Royal College of Paediatricians, the Royal College of Physicians and children’s charity Unicef say that the UK’s toxic air and cold weather will leave a huge number of children extremely vulnerable this winter, creating an “overlooked” emergency for an already stretched NHS.
Continue reading...Deadly pig virus could hit US in a year, warn experts
African swine fever has been spreading rapidly in China and has also travelled from Russia and Eastern Europe to Belgium. Experts fear it is only a matter of time before it reaches the US.
A global outbreak of African swine fever will reach the US within a year unless border protections are tightened and imports of high-risk pork products banned, warn biosecurity experts. It would cost the US economy $16.5bn (£12.9bn) in the first year alone, it has been estimated.
An ongoing epidemic of the virus, which is deadly for pigs but cannot yet be transmitted to humans, has prompted the US Department of Agriculture to review and strengthen its border protections. After outbreaks in Belgium and China this year, the USDA has increased the use of sniffer dogs at major ports, airports, land borders crossings, and has also built quarantine stations and increased passenger and cargo inspections on flights from China and Russia, the worst hit countries.
Continue reading...World's oldest known wild bird to become a mother for the 37th time
Wisdom, a 68-year-old Laysan albatross, has laid another egg with her longtime lover at the Midway Atoll national wildlife refuge
In sea mariner lore, an albatross is considered a good omen, and for almost seven decades, one bird has spread generations of blessings across the Pacific Ocean.
Wisdom, a 68-year-old Laysan albatross believed to be the world’s oldest known wild bird, has returned to her home at the Midway Atoll national wildlife refuge for yet another winter – and laid yet another egg to add to the already impressive brood that she has built up over an impressive lifetime.
Continue reading...Africa cocoa industry failing on deforestation pledge – campaigners
Tens of thousands of hectares cleared in Ghana and Ivory Coast since vow to end practice
The cocoa industry is failing to meet a highly publicised pledge to stop deforestation in west Africa and eliminate tainted beans from supply chains, environmental campaigners say.
Big chocolate companies and the governments of Ghana and the Ivory Coast continue to be responsible for the deforestation of tens of thousands of hectares of land over the past year in former rainforest-covered nations, despite their solemn promises to end the practice last November, the campaigning organisation Mighty Earth said.
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