The Guardian
Billion-dollar polar engineering ‘needed to slow melting glaciers’
Scientists have outlined plans to build a series of mammoth engineering projects in Greenland and Antarctica to help slow down the disintegration of the planet’s main glaciers. The controversial proposals include underwater walls, artificial islands and huge pumping stations that would channel cold water into the bases of glaciers to stop them from melting and sliding into the sea.
The researchers say the work – costing tens of billions of dollars a time – is urgently needed to prevent polar glaciers melting and raising sea levels. That would lead to major inundations of low-lying, densely populated areas, such as parts of Bangladesh, Japan and the Netherlands.
Continue reading...Drugs, plastics and flea killer: the unseen threats to UK's rivers
Waterways look cleaner but levels of new pollutants are not being monitored
Beer hasn’t been sold in steel cans for decades. The cans Keith Dopson found in Slough’s Salt Hill stream would be collectors’ items were they in good condition, but they had disintegrated into clumps of rust.
“We filled seven bin bags with rubbish,” he says. “Just from the river, not the banks. Plastic bottles and cans, lots of cans. Those steel ones must have been there for ages.”
Continue reading...Country diary: life out of the freezer
Comins Coch, Aberystwyth, Ceredigion The thaw has set in, and starlings are busy amid the last of the melting snow
Being west of the mountains, we missed the worst of the recent bout of snow – but the gale force easterly wind had a significant impact. Our house, tucked under the shoulder of the hill, is well sheltered from the usual winter winds that roar out of the south-west but the wide, open view of the hills to the east comes at a price.
A sudden ice-laden squall had driven me briefly outside to salvage some tumbling plant pots, when the steel cowl was wrenched from the top of the chimney. It missed me by fewer feet than I would have liked, and bounded off down the frozen garden with a sound reminiscent of a galvanised bucket being dropped down a flight of stone stairs.
Continue reading...Offsets for emissions breaches prove Australia has a carbon market, Labor says
Industrial sites have spent millions on carbon credits under Direct Action’s ‘safeguard mechanism’
Sixteen Australian industrial sites have breached government-imposed greenhouse gas emissions limits and had to buy millions of dollars in carbon credits to offset the infringement.
The breaches came despite big emitters being granted generous carbon limits, in many cases above their highest previous pollution levels.
Continue reading...Inaction over clean air zones and bottled water cannot continue | Letters
The government needs to step up and provide clear messaging and leadership on charging clean air zones (Car industry should pay for UK’s toxic air, inquiry says, 15 March). About 40,000 premature deaths a year are attributable to air pollution; inaction simply cannot continue. The government’s own evidence identifies charging clean air zones as the most effective way to reduce levels of nitrogen dioxide in the shortest time possible. Despite this, they continue to be presented as a last resort, with little support given to the local authorities that are left to decide whether to implement them. The government should mandate charging clean air zones in areas where legal limits of air pollution are being broken.
Reducing all vehicular traffic in towns and cities is the best way to protect people’s health from the harmful effects of air pollution. Electric vehicles still release fine particulate matter, caused by the wear and tear of tyres and brake pads, which gets into our respiratory system and contributes to early death. Investing revenue from clean air zones in safe walking routes, cycling infrastructure and public transport is the best way to make the UK’s air breathable for us all.
Holly Smith
Policy coordinator, Living Streets
Shutting down EU ivory trade is a ‘personal priority’ for Boris Johnson
• An estimated 20-30,000 elephants are killed by poachers each year
• UK was world’s largest legal ivory exporter between 2010 and 2015
A government minister has promised that the UK will lead a fight to shut down the ivory trade in the EU, describing the issue as “a personal priority” for the foreign secretary Boris Johnson.
Speaking at a conservation summit in Botswana, the Africa minister, Harriet Baldwin, said: “The UK will lead by example. We will be shutting down our ivory trade. We will be working with the EU to do the same. That is something we can do irrespective of whether we are in the European Union or not.”
Continue reading...First polar bear cub born in Britain for 25 years – video
Footage from a documentary about the first polar bear cub to be born in the UK in the past 25 years has been released. The cub was born at the RZSS Highland Wildlife Park in Kincraig, Scotland. Before the first sighting this month, the birth – which took place a week before Christmas – had only been confirmed by high-pitched noises from the den
• Britain’s Polar Bear Cub airs Sunday at 7pm on Channel 4
Continue reading...Plan to cut Glasgow air pollution is a failure, say campaigners
Friends of the Earth criticises ‘unambitious’ blueprint for first Scottish low emissions zone
Campaigners have criticised plans for Scotland’s first low emissions zone to combat illegal levels of air pollution in Glasgow city centre.
Last October, World Health Organisation testing found that Glasgow was one of the most polluted areas in the UK, with poorer air quality than London, Manchester and Cardiff. Public Health England estimates the equivalent of 300 lives are lost in the city every year due to air pollution.
Continue reading...The week in wildlife – in pictures
Gentoo penguins, an albatross chick and spring crocuses are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world
Continue reading...Is Fukushima doomed to become a dumping ground for toxic waste?
Despite promises of revitalisation from Japan’s government, seven years on from the nuclear disaster the area is still desolate
This month, seven years after the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi reactor meltdowns and explosions that blanketed hundreds of square kilometres of northeastern Japan with radioactive debris, government officials and politicians spoke in hopeful terms about Fukushima’s prosperous future. Nevertheless, perhaps the single most important element of Fukushima’s future remains unspoken: the exclusion zone seems destined to host a repository for Japan’s most hazardous nuclear waste.
No Japanese government official will admit this, at least not publicly. A secure repository for nuclear waste has remained a long-elusive goal on the archipelago. But, given that Japan possesses approximately 17,000 tonnes of spent fuel from nuclear power operations, such a development is vital. Most spent fuel rods are still stored precariously above ground, in pools, in a highly earthquake-prone nation.
Continue reading...Microplastics, Antarctic wildlife and making polluters pay – green news roundup
The week’s top environment news stories and green events. If you are not already receiving this roundup, sign up here to get the briefing delivered to your inbox
Continue reading...Earth is my witness: the photography of Art Wolfe – in pictures
The photography of Art Wolfe covers the globe, capturing landscapes, wildlife, and cultures from every continent. Here he talks us through a selection of his favourite images
- Wolfe will be at The Photography Show on 17-18 March in Birmingham, UK
The quest for bike-friendly children's books in a world where cars rule
From cute cars to smiley emergency vehicles, kids’ culture is awash with rosy images of driving, so a new Mr Men book about cycling is a welcome read. What are your favourite cycling-friendly children’s books?
“Give me the child until he is seven and I will show you the man,” is a maxim usually attributed to the Jesuits, but it’s not only religious institutions that use early years training to hook people for life. There’s a mainstream indoctrination that is considered perfectly normal: the promotion of motoring to children.
Car companies don’t have to pay for this brainwashing; we do it automatically. We sit toddlers on our laps and let them pretend-steer our cars while stationary. We buy babies’ bibs festooned with anthropomorphic trucks and nee-nah emergency vehicles. Pixar’s Cars movie is so popular because the fetishisation of driving is deeply embedded in our society. Motor vehicles are spoon-fed to children as benign, cuddly, and desirable. Passing your driving test remains the preeminent rite of passage into adulthood.
Continue reading...Which items can't be recycled?
Many people think items such as plastic bags and coffee cups can be recycled when they can’t. Here are the do’s and don’ts
British consumers are increasingly willing to recycle their household waste but are failing to grasp the basics, according to the latest research by the British Science Association. Failure to get it right means that a lot of recyclable waste is going to landfill, the BSA says.
The issue is further complicated by inconsistency among councils, which make their own rules and funding decisions on recycling collections.
Continue reading...Kitchen roll among things Britons wrongly think they can recycle
Others include plastic soap dispenser tops and wrapping paper, study shows
British consumers are in the dark about exactly what household waste they can recycle, a new poll has revealed, with plastic soap dispenser tops, kitchen roll and wrapping paper topping the list of things they wrongly consider recyclable.
Research shows that Britons are more aware than ever of how recycling can help the environment. However, the majority are putting out contaminated recycling due to common misunderstandings, thereby doing more harm than good.
Continue reading...Country diary: it clung like a stilt walker to its wavering perches
Farlington Marshes, Hampshire Gazing into the reedbeds, scanning for bearded tits, felt a lot like looking at a magic eye puzzle
Spotting reedbed-dwelling birds is tricky at the best of times, but more so in winter as only one songbird is resident year-round – the bearded tit (Panurus biarmicus). Their common name is somewhat of a misnomer as they are neither bearded nor tits, though with their “ping pong ball on a lolly stick” body shape, they do bear a passing resemblance to long-tailed tits. They are also referred to as bearded parrotbills or bearded reedlings – given that they are entirely dependent on reedbed habitat for their survival, the latter seems most fitting.
At this time of year “beardies” tend to feed out of sight, fossicking through the soil in search of fallen seeds. Their tonal plumage makes it difficult to pick them out as they flit through the bleached stands of Phragmites australis, but eventually I caught sight of a flutter of movement deep in the vegetation. I raised my binoculars for a closer view, but the dense reed monoculture lacked any prominent features to use as a visual point of reference, so I immediately lost sight of my quarry.
Continue reading...Pollutionwatch: Cold snap worsens particle load of air
Particle pollution increases as the wind slows down and chilly weather prompts the lighting of more wood fires
The last days of the “beast from the east” cold spell caused air pollution problems across large parts of the UK, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands. Within the UK particle pollution reached between five and 10 on the UK government’s 10-point scale over parts of south Wales and areas of England south of a Merseyside to Tyneside line, except the far south-west.
Pollution from industry, traffic and home wood and coal burning can stay in the air for a week or up to 10 days. This means that pollution emitted in one part of Europe can cause problems hundreds of miles away. If the wind slows down then particle pollution can build up over a whole region.
Continue reading...Endangered sharks, dolphins and rays killed by shark net trial
Only one target shark caught in NSW nets in two months, while 55 other marine creatures killed or trapped
Shark nets on the New South Wales north coast have caught just a single target shark in the past two months, while continuing to trap or kill dolphins, turtles, and protected marine life.
A single bull shark was caught in the nets around Ballina in January and February, while 55 other animals were either killed or trapped.
Continue reading...Awkward questions about biodiversity | Letters
Damian Carrington are to be congratulated on a wide-ranging and informative article on the urgency and scale of the current global threat to biodiversity and the Guardian (What is biodiversity and why does it matter to us?, theguardian.com, 12 March). However, we of the Beyond Extinction Economics (BEE) network have reservations about the article’s diagnosis of its causes, and proposals for addressing the crisis.
First, to say “we” or “human activity” is responsible for biodiversity loss sidesteps the more serious challenge of identifying the specific socio-cultural, and, more centrally, economic drivers of destruction. Second, to slip easily from population rises to industrial development, housing and farming as the causes of the destruction of wild areas evades critical questions about what sort of industry, producing what sort of consumer goods and what kind of farming and food distribution system – let alone questions as to who has the power to decide and who gets to consume and who doesn’t.
Continue reading...New oil threat looms over England's national park land, campaigners warn
More than 170,000 acres of protected countryside in the south-east face risk of drilling
More than 170,000 acres of protected countryside, including national park land, in the south-east of England are at risk from a new wave of oil drilling, environmental campaigners have warned.
Under threat are areas of outstanding natural beauty in the Weald, which runs between the north and south downs, and the South Downs national park, Greenpeace said.
Continue reading...