The Guardian
Environment department accused of Brexit ‘panic’ after urgent staff demand
Leaked memo shows managers were given 24 hours to name 75 staff to be redeployed to work on a no-deal scenario
The environment department has been accused of “panic” over Brexit after a leaked document revealed the emergency redeployment of staff to prepare for a no-deal scenario.
Managers at the Environment Agency (EA) were given just 24 hours to name 75 staff to be sent to the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). In September, the National Audit Office said Michael Gove’s department will not be ready for a no-deal Brexit, with meat and dairy and chemicals exports especially threatened.
Continue reading...Lion poaching: the brutal new threat to Africa’s prides
The big cats are horribly easy to kill with poisoned meat, allowing poachers to hack off their faces and paws – but rangers are now on their trail
• Warning: this article includes graphic images some readers may find disturbing
“That’s fresh, just a few hours old,” says Kris Everatt, pointing at a clear print of a lion’s paw in the hot dust. “It’s the ghost pride.”
The print is female. A bigger male print is soon spotted, also leading towards a precious water hole, then a smaller one. “A cub, less than two years old,” he says.
Continue reading...Air pollution: everything you should know about a public health emergency
It isn’t just car fumes that fill our urban centres with particles. Why is air pollution on the rise, who does it affect most – and what can we do about it?
Nothing is more vital to life than breathing: in a lifetime, about 250m litres of air passes through your lungs. Yet walk along a busy city street and you will inhale something like 20m particles in a single lungful.
Continue reading...Childhood obesity linked to air pollution from vehicles
Research suggests first year ‘critical window’ in which toxic air can increase weight gain
Early exposure to air pollution from vehicles increases the risk of children becoming obese, new research has found.
High levels of nitrogen dioxide, which is emitted by diesel engines, in the first year of life led to significantly faster weight gain later, the scientists found. Other pollutants produced by road traffic have also been linked to obesity in children by recent studies.
Continue reading...Government faces new legal challenge over plans to speed up fracking
Opponents say revised definition of fracking will allow energy firms to bypass planning rules
The government is facing a fresh legal challenge to its proposals to fast-track new fracking sites by loosening planning regulations.
Ministers said this summer they would drop the requirement for shale gas wells to obtain planning permission by designating fracking sites as national infrastructure projects.
Continue reading...David Attenborough: too much alarmism on environment a turn-off
Sir David Attenborough, the world’s most famous wildlife storyteller, believes repeated warnings about human destruction of the natural world can be a “turn-off” for viewers – a comment that is likely to reignite the debate about whether the veteran broadcaster’s primary duty is to entertain or educate.
Ahead of the launch of Dynasties, a new five-part BBC documentary series, the presenter of Blue Planet II and Planet Earth II said the impact of habitat loss, climate change and pollution were evident everywhere, but sounding the alarm too often could be counterproductive.
Continue reading...The artist putting rubbish to visionary use – in pictures
“I wanted to give trash a second chance,” says Cyrus Kabiru, 34, who makes art – including highly decorative eyewear – out of wires, pins, bottle tops and other detritus he finds on the streets of Nairobi and around the world. Kabiru, who grew up in a Nairobi slum, started making glasses as a child. “I tried to get my dad to buy me a pair. He was like, ‘I can’t, maybe you design your own.’” There was no shortage of materials, with one of the largest dumping grounds in Nairobi next door. Kabiru began turning junk into spectacles. This caught people’s imagination; now he travels the world showing his art (he also makes bicycles and masks out of waste material) and giving talks on creativity. None of his “glasses” has lenses. “They’re not for seeing better; they’re for seeing different,” he says.
This crab could save your life - if humans don't wipe it out first
The Horseshoe crab outlived the dinosaurs but is no match for medicine’s hunger for its blood
Few people in the world are aware their wellbeing may one day depend on a blue-blooded crab that looks like a cross between the facehugger from Alien and a gigantic louse. Fewer still realise this ancient creature now faces its greatest threat in more than 450m years.
The American horseshoe crab outlived the dinosaurs and has survived four previous mass extinctions, but is now menaced by the pharmaceutical industry, fishing communities, habitat loss, climate change and, most recently, choking tides of red algae off the east coast of the United States.
Continue reading...'The most intellectual creature to ever walk Earth is destroying its only home'
Introducing the Guardian’s new series The Age of Extinction, the renowned primatologist describes the dramatic vanishing of wildlife she has witnessed in her lifetime – and how we can all play a vital role in halting its destruction
During my years studying chimpanzees in Gombe national park in Tanzania I experienced the magic of the rainforest. I learned how all life is interconnected, how each species, no matter how insignificant it may seem, has a role to play in the rich tapestry of life – known today as biodiversity. Even the loss of one thread can have a ripple effect and result in major damage to the whole.
I left Gombe in 1986 when I realised how fast chimpanzee habitat was being destroyed and how their numbers were declining. I visited six chimpanzee range states and learned a great deal about the rate of deforestation as a result of foreign corporations (timber, oil and mining) and population growth in communities in and around chimpanzee habitat, so that more land was needed for expanding villages, agriculture and grazing livestock.
Continue reading...Stop biodiversity loss or we could face our own extinction, warns UN
The world has two years to secure a deal for nature to halt a ‘silent killer’ as dangerous as climate change, says biodiversity chief
The world must thrash out a new deal for nature in the next two years or humanity could be the first species to document our own extinction, warns the United Nation’s biodiversity chief.
Ahead of a key international conference to discuss the collapse of ecosystems, Cristiana Pașca Palmer said people in all countries need to put pressure on their governments to draw up ambitious global targets by 2020 to protect the insects, birds, plants and mammals that are vital for global food production, clean water and carbon sequestration.
Continue reading...Experts fear impact of China lifting trade ban on tiger and rhino parts
Burden of enforcement will hit poorer nations already struggling to cope, say conservationists
China’s decision to loosen a 25-year ban on the trade of tiger bones and rhino horn will put pressure on poor foreign nations as well as endangered global wildlife, according to experts on the illegal trade in animals.
Government officials in Beijing say the introduction of quotas for these body parts to be used in traditional Chinese medicine will allow them to manage legal demand, but conservationists say the move will cause more conflict in African and Asian countries that are trying to limit the illegal supply.
Continue reading...Adani yet to sign royalties deal despite claiming to be close to financing mine
Exclusive: slimmed-down Carmichael plan calls into question eligibility to delay royalties payment
The Adani mining company has still not signed a royalties agreement with the Queensland government, despite its claims to be just weeks away from green-lighting the Carmichael mine.
This week, Adani’s Australian mining head, Lucas Dow, gave a series of interviews claiming the company was close to financing a slimmed-down, $2bn integrated Carmichael mine, rail and port proposal.
Analysts say the strategy is to get the mine into production while spending as little upfront cash as possible. Guardian Australia understands it relies heavily on vendor financing agreements, in which payments to contractors and suppliers are effectively withheld for several years.
Adani now insists it can start Carmichael for a fraction of the investment previously required. But Queensland government sources say the slimmed-down plan calls into question Adani’s eligibility to delay payment of royalties.
Continue reading...The week in wildlife – in pictures
A Bengal tiger, oystercatchers and a new species of butterfly are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world
Continue reading...GDT European wildlife photographer of the year 2018 – in pictures
A hunting wolverine, rainbow lake and delicate ice trees are among the winning images selected by the Society of German Nature Photographers. The photographers explain how they captured their prizewinning shots
Continue reading...Summers could be entirely powered by clean energy by 2050
Demand for the rest of the year and lower solar output will still keep energy firms in business
British summers could be entirely powered without fossil fuels by the middle of the century without breaking the economics of the energy market, according to a report.
But while wind, solar and nuclear power would provide nearly 91% of the country’s electricity by then, up from about 50% today, gas power stations are still expected to be needed during winters.
Continue reading...Electric food – magic bullet or magical thinking? | Letters
George Monbiot makes a strong case for how our ecosystem might survive (Electric food – the new sci-fi diet that could save our planet, 31 October). He thinks it is imperative that we eliminate meat in favour of plant-based agriculture. He also wants us to explore the possibility of using electricity instead of photosynthesis to convert sunlight into food. Since this would be 10 times more efficient, farming and fishing need take up much less space and biodiversity could flourish.
But I must protest at the absurdity of his claim that the destruction of forests and wetlands along with “the slaughter of predators and the massacre of turtles … is done at our behest”. The felling of rainforest in Brazil is no more done at my behest, even if (knowingly or unknowingly) I happen to buy toiletries or food containing palm oil, than is the laundering of dirty money because I have a mortgage with a high street bank.
Continue reading...Hornets, billionaires and other ‘migrants’ | Brief letters
Mark Cocker (Country diary, 30 October) enthusiastically describes European hornets mingling with other insects. I hope he is aware of the recent invasion into this country from Europe of the very similar, but slightly smaller Asian hornet. This dangerous insect, originally from China and becoming common in France, kills other insects and predates on honeybees. It has destroyed many colonies in France and is a threat to our native honeybee. Report sightings to alertnonnative@ceh.ac.uk
Maggie Dann
Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands
• Oxford Dictionaries defines “migrant” as “a person who moves from one place to another, especially in order to find work or better living conditions”. That description hardly applies to a Thai billionaire who bought Leicester City football club (Leicester City’s owner: why isn’t it OK to say he was a migrant, 31 October). Was Roman Abramovich a migrant until we revoked his visa?
Steve Mason
Hornchurch, Essex
'More and more' Tories turning against fracking, says MP
Lee Rowley says many colleagues have concerns as opposition builds to loosening of planning rules
A growing number of Tory MPs are turning against fracking, according to one MP with a drilling site in his constituency.
Lee Rowley, who chairs the new all-party parliamentary group looking into the impact of shale gas, told the Guardian he was seeing increasing numbers of colleagues with worries about fracking.
Continue reading...Minor earthquakes emerge as major threat to UK fracking
Protests and court cases have failed but the government’s rules on tremors could wreck shale gas economics
Protests, legal challenges and planning rejections have failed to stop the return of fracking in Britain, but the government’s regulations on earthquakes are fast emerging as the biggest threat to the nascent shale gas industry.
The energy company Cuadrilla has been forced to stop work twice in four days – on Friday last week and on Monday – due to minor earthquakes occurring while it was fracking. The tremors breached a seismic threshold imposed after fracking caused minor earthquakes in 2011.
Continue reading...Democrats have no broad climate plan even as they prepare to win the House
The party is wary of wading into a tough political fight, despite an intensifying environmental crisis
Democrats don’t have a plan to address climate change comprehensively – or even to a significant degree – if they regain control of the US government in the near future, despite criticizing Republicans as the party of pollution.
After failing to get conservatives on board to limit planet-warming gases through legislation or regulation, Democratic leaders in Washington are now wary of wading into another tough political fight, despite an intensifying environmental crisis.
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