The Guardian
One new species of 'micro-moth' found in Britain every year
Experts say almost 30 species of pyralid moths have flown in or been transported via the horticultural trade
Continue reading...Country diary: buzzard and crows meet in aerial combat
Sandy, Bedfordshire: The smaller birds lunged and jabbed with mute jibes that might have said: ‘Egg thief! Chick killer! Get out of our territory!’
All through the spring, mewling cries of raptors have scolded out of thin air. On clear-sky days such as this the buzzard is complainer-in-chief, condemned by nature to speak only in a minor key. Even in the exaltation of soaring, the uplift of raised wings is accompanied by a downbeat of dissatisfaction. Nevertheless, the buzzard demonstrates moments of great expressiveness, when its peevish tones are transformed into genuine distress.
Such a mayday came just as I was sauntering down the long slope from Sheerhatch Wood. The call had me swivelling round to scan over the trees, only to be turned again by a pained cry that seemed to be coming from the opposite direction. The buzzard was flying overhead, assaulted front, back and sides by a pair of crows. The smaller birds were intent on ruffling a few feathers, lunging and jabbing with mute jibes that might have said: “Egg thief! Chick killer! Get out of our territory!” The hapless buzzard, their sworn-at enemy, flapped in loud desperation, unable to rid itself of its turbulent assailants.
Continue reading...Weatherwatch: Mauvoisin disaster triggered scientific interest in glaciers
A ‘glacial lake outburst flood’ killed 44 people and many animals in 1818 in Switzerland
In June 1818, ice falling from the tongue of the Giétro glacier had in effect blocked the valley of Mauvoisin in Switzerland. Water was building up behind this ice dam to dangerous levels, and engineers were called in to release it gradually. They drilled a hole through the ice, but it did not relieve the water pressure quickly enough. On 16 June at 4.30pm the ice dam burst, disintegrating and releasing all the water at once.
The result was a catastrophic “glacial lake outburst flood”, a phenomenon characterised by extremely high rates of water flow. Warnings did not travel as fast as the sudden rush of 20m cubic metres (4.4bn gallons) of water, which swept away bridges and buildings in its path, killing 44 people and many animals.
Continue reading...Antarctic ice melting faster than ever, studies show
Rate of melt has accelerated threefold in last five years and could contribute 25cm to sea-level rises without urgent action
Ice in the Antarctic is melting at a record-breaking rate and the subsequent sea rises could have catastrophic consequences for cities around the world, according to two new studies.
A report led by scientists in the UK and US found the rate of melting from the Antarctic ice sheet has accelerated threefold in the last five years and is now vanishing faster than at any previously recorded time.
Continue reading...Let’s go with the grain of tidal power | Brief letters
Further to your travel feature on the Greek island of Leros (9 June), may I recommend to your readers Four’s Destiny: A Wartime Greek Tragedy by Michael Powell, a fictionalised account centring on Leros. Powell weaves a clever, powerful story around some fascinating wartime history. We follow four young men, one each from England, Germany, Italy and Greece, as the second world war changes their lives and destinies.
Ruth Samuels
Bishop’s Stortford, Hertfordshire
• Re the proposed Swansea Bay tidal power lagoon (Letters, 11 June), the tidal-powered grain mill on the River Lea at Bromley-by-Bow in London was economic from the 1700s to the 1930s – and without the super-efficient bearings common in today’s machinery. Such small-scale hydro-powered generators (tidal and river) should be all over the country – they’d provide work and be far less expensive than nuclear. But some city slickers won’t be so able to extract their rent from localised generation so it won’t be approved by UK’s present government.
Robin Le Mare
Allithwaite, Cumbria
Doug Ford’s disastrous agenda can be derailed by a massive grassroots movement | Martin Lukacs
The right-wing triumph in Ontario shows the left needs a new populism – backed by street protest and a bold NDP
The guardians of respectable opinion forecast that Doug Ford would never become Ontario’s Premier. Now that he has, they are suggesting his reign might be orderly and painless.
While agreeing with his basic agenda, the Globe & Mail is crossing its fingers that Ford “moves slowly on the public-service layoffs and program cuts…to avoid strikes and social discord.”
Continue reading...What paddleboarding through plastic taught me about our disposables problem
My daughter and I spent a weekend scouring the Salcombe estuary for discarded plastics. What we found proves that a throwaway culture is simply not sustainable
One My Little Pony, two crabbing buckets, five balloons, six balls, seven straws, nine shoes, a dozen coffee cups, 20 carrier bags, 205 plastic bottles and lids, polystyrene and a huge amount of rope. That is just a fraction of what my six-year-old daughter, Ella, and I collected over the course of two days last weekend, as we paddleboarded around the Salcombe-Kingsbridge estuary in south Devon, scouring the foreshores of every creek and cove for 22 miles.
Within seconds of setting off from South Sands beach by the mouth of the estuary, we spotted a clear plastic carrier bag floating in the shallows. Marine wildlife could easily have mistaken it for a jellyfish. Ella grabbed it with a litter picker as we paddled past.
Continue reading...Rise in global carbon emissions a 'big step backwards', says BP
Coal rebound and slowing efficiency gains in 2017 suggest Paris goals may be missed, says oil firm
The renewed upward march of global carbon emissions is worrying and a big step backwards in the fight against climate change, according to BP.
Emissions rose 1.6% in 2017 after flatlining for the previous three years, which the British oil firm said was a reminder the world was not on track to hit the goals of the Paris climate deal.
Continue reading...Chepstow celebrates plastic-free status with plastic banner
Councillor calls for sign to be removed from battlements saying it is ‘beyond irony’
A historic town in south Wales has been criticised for celebrating becoming a plastic-free community by hanging a banner made of plastic from a 13th-century gateway.
Chepstow fixed the large banner to the battlements of its town gate after being granted plastic-free status by the green charity Surfers Against Sewage.
Continue reading...Michael Gove appoints UK 'tree champion'
Sir William Worsley is tasked with stopping the unnecessary felling of trees and support plans to plant 11 million trees
The environment secretary, Michael Gove, has appointed a “tree champion” to stop the unnecessary felling of trees and boost planting rates.
Sir William Worsley, chairman of the National Forest Company which oversees the National Forest, has been appointed to support government promises to plant 11 million trees, plus a further 1 million in towns and cities. The move, part of the pledges in the government’s 25-year environment plan, comes after a controversial tree-felling programme in Sheffield.
Continue reading...Fifth of Britain’s wild mammals ‘at high risk of extinction’
Species including the wildcat and black rat may be lost within a decade while others such as deer are thriving, analysis shows
The wildcat and mouse-eared bat are on the brink, but deer are spreading and otters bouncing back, according to a comprehensive analysis.
At least one in five wild mammals in Britain faces a high risk of extinction within a decade and overall populations are falling, according to the most comprehensive analysis to date.
Continue reading...Country diary: gatecrashing an extraordinary party of orchids
Wenlock Edge, Shropshire: There were masses of southern marsh orchids, many of which were in the early stages of flower opening like a slow-motion firework display
The southern marsh orchids, Dactylorhiza praetermissa, are almost knee high, with apple-green leaves, thick hollow stems and a spearhead of extraordinary purple-pink, cryptically lined flowers. They have suddenly and ceremoniously materialised in the abandoned field like ambassadors from another planet. Despite their indolence, everything about them – their form, colour, identity, presence, future – is mysterious. They stand among us, splendidly alien, as if they’ve entered consciousness from a terra incognita outside our everyday experience. These are not just flowers but an event with a magenta aura.
Only last week I wandered into this field, really just a fenced-off patch of limestone quarry spoil, to check on what might be flowering. In some years there are dense colonies of common spotted orchids and one year there were dozens of bee orchids, but the larger groups of orchid never last long and some years they are few and far between. I was beginning to think this year would be a poor show until I came across a couple of big southern marsh orchids, opening from places that had been really wet all winter.
Continue reading...Birdwatch: garden warblers are losing their scrub habitat
Garden warblers in fact prefer thick scrub, which is dying out in our tidy countryside
Some birds are very well named: such as the cuckoo, treecreeper and song thrush. Others, including Kentish plover, grey wagtail and garden warbler, are almost wilfully misleading.
Garden warblers are, unlike their cousin the blackcap, hardly ever found in gardens. They prefer thick scrub, a transitory habitat that is becoming harder and harder to find in our increasingly tidy countryside.
Continue reading...Philanthropists' $1m pledge aims to double largest cat-free zone
Andrew and Jane Clifford promise to match donations in bid to stop feral cats
A $1m donation to the fight against feral cats could help to double the size of the world’s largest cat-free sanctuary or help genetically neuter cats, conservationists say.
Sydney philanthropists Andrew and Jane Clifford have pledged to match every donation made to the Australian Wildlife Conservancy up to $1m before the end of the financial year, hoping to create a $2m fund to eradicate Australia’s cat plague.
Continue reading...Cut out meat, pets and kids to save the Earth | Letters
Alongside George Monbiot’s suggestion (Want to save the planet? Drop meat and dairy, 8 June), another way to reduce greenhouse gases is to stop keeping pets. It’s been calculated that an average dog has an ecological footprint twice as large as that of a large car.
Like meat-eating, pet ownership is nowadays encouraged by a vast industry; the pet insurance sector alone is said to generate more of Britain’s GDP than fishing does. The production of pet food, provision of veterinary services and breeding the creatures are big businesses, all with an interest in promoting the alleged benefits of owning a furry friend.
Continue reading...How universal basic income and rewilding could save the planet | Simon Lewis and Mark Maslin
Are we doomed to societal collapse? Not if we break the mould of ever-greater production and consumption
Enough concrete has been produced to cover the entire surface of the Earth in a layer two millimetres thick. Enough plastic has been manufactured to clingfilm it as well. We produce 4.8bn tonnes of our top five crops, plus 4.8 billion head of livestock, annually. There are 1.2bn motor vehicles, 2bn personal computers, and more mobile phones than the 7.5 billion people on Earth.
The result of all this production and consumption is a chronic, escalating, many-sided environmental crisis. From rapid climate change to species extinctions to microplastics in every ocean, these impacts are now so large that many scientists have concluded that we have entered a new human-dominated geological period called the Anthropocene.
Continue reading...Windfarm experts publish no research and had no face-to-face meetings last year
Committee was set up by former prime minister Tony Abbott to handle complaints about wind turbine noise
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An independent scientific committee on wind turbines established by the Coalition in 2015 failed to hold one face-to-face meeting last year and failed to have its research accepted by peer-reviewed journals.
The independent scientific committee on wind turbines was created to advise on the science of potential impacts of wind turbines on people’s health.
Continue reading...Country diary: flowers emerge from the shingle
Pagham Harbour, West Sussex: Among the detritus, towers of red valerian shake in the wind and sea kale plants explode in a flurry of wavy green leaves
Continue reading...Weatherwatch: sunbathing carp grow faster and fitter than their timid cousins
Carp that soak up the sun are fitter, and bold fish benefit more by sunbathing for longer
One magic late afternoon in summer, sitting on the bank of a clear, still lake in Hertfordshire, it was possible to see lines of motionless carp on the surface that appeared to be sunbathing. The idea that fish, like snakes and other ectotherms (“cold-blooded” creatures), might enjoy or benefit from sunbathing was dismissed as a childish fancy at the time, but many decades later has been vindicated.
A scientific paper shows that carp not only sunbathe, but also gain body heat, grow faster and are fitter as a result. These fish were warmer than their surroundings despite the fact that scientists thought this was impossible because the fish were immersed in cold water. Another key finding is that not all fish gained equally. The darker fish absorbed more warmth than their paler companions and grew faster.
Continue reading...Australia's emissions reduction target 'unambitious, irresponsible'
New Australia Institute paper finds neither Coalition nor Labor’s pollution reduction targets would see us doing our fair share
Pollution reduction targets for 2030 proposed by the Coalition and Labor will not see Australia contributing its fair share to cut greenhouse gas emissions under the Paris climate agreement, according to new research.
A paper from the progressive thinktank the Australia Institute finds the Turnbull government’s target of a 26-28% reduction on 2005 levels is “inadequate according to any recognised principle-based approach” and the Labor target of a 45% reduction is “the bare minimum necessary for Australia to be considered to be making an equitable contribution to the achievement of the Paris agreement’s two degree target”.
Continue reading...