The Guardian
Government got its sums wrong on Swansea Bay tidal lagoon | Letters
The rejection by ministers of the proposed Swansea Bay tidal lagoon (Report, 26 June) must be the final nail in the coffin of what was once claimed would be “the greenest government ever”.
When I and my fellow planning inspectors spent the best part of a year examining and reporting on both the principle and the detail of the project in Swansea, it was clear that this pathfinder project had important environmental, cultural and regeneration benefits.
Continue reading...Why going to Wales gives you butterflies | Brief letters
Tony Greaves asks for Israel to be treated like other states (Letters, 26 June) on the very day that Britain, after a wait of 70 years, treats Israel like other states with a first royal visit.
Mark Drukker
Reading, Berkshire
• If Peter Hanson (Letters, 26 June) just crossed the Bristol Channel, he would find that, very sensibly, his butterflies have decamped to the Gower peninsula. Walking on the cliffs over the last week I’ve been besieged by butterflies of all kinds – clearly they have realised that a better lifestyle is on offer over the border in Wales.
Anne Cowper
Swansea
'The war goes on’: one tribe caught up in Colombia’s armed conflict
Part 1 of a report on the indigenous Siona people in the Putumayo region in the Amazon
Placido Yaiguaje Payaguaje, an indigenous Siona man, was standing right where his 80-something mother was blown apart by a land-mine. There was a crater about the size of a beach ball. Surrounding foliage had been shredded, and on some of the leaves and fronds you could still see the dynamite.
This was a 20 metre, steepish climb down to the banks of the River Piñuña Blanco, deep in the Colombian Amazon. Placido’s mother had come here to fish in a lagoon nearby. It was a popular spot for singo, sábalo and garopa.
Would you eat whale or dolphin meat after visiting a marine sanctuary?
After visiting a whale sanctuary in Iceland there is also the chance to eat whale at a nearby restaurant. It seems like a bizarre idea, but what are the ethical and culinary implications?
Should you eat whale meat? Reports on Iceland’s new retirement home for beluga whales note that, after viewing the animals – rescued from a Shanghai marine park – tourists can then visit a harbourside restaurant where they can dine on whale meat. Last week, Iceland resumed whaling after a three-year hiatus, killing a 20-metre fin whale on the country’s west coast.
The Iceland sanctuary has been set up with the assistance of the highly reputable Whale and Dolphin Conservation organisation. Danny Groves of WDC notes that only 3% of Iceland’s local population now eat whale. He points out that the country’s whale-watching industry far outweighs whaling economically. “The sanctuary ... should be championed as an alternative to the cruel practises of whale and dolphin hunting and the keeping of these animals in captivity,” he says.
Continue reading...China lifts ban on British beef
£250m deal allows official market access negotiations to begin, 20 years after beef was banned following the BSE outbreak
British beef will be back on the menu in China for the first time in more than 20 years, after it officially lifted the longstanding ban on exports from the UK.
More than two decades since the Chinese government first banned British beef after the BSE outbreak, the milestone is the culmination of several years of site inspections in the UK and negotiations between government officials.
Continue reading...Cheap bacon: how shops and shoppers let down our pigs
With Brexit looming our animal welfare standards are vulnerable. We’ve got welfare reform wrong in the past - how can we get it right in the future?
“When it came to the crunch the retailers let us down,” says Ian Campbell. When he took over the running of a Norfolk farm in the early 1990s, pig farming was a successful, relatively healthy British sector.
But within a few years a government ban on the use of gestation crates, combined with a rise in the value of the pound and a pig meat glut in Europe, would decimate the industry. The number of UK farmers would be nearly halved, while cheap meat from other countries with lower welfare requirements would come flooding in.
Trump should inspire us all, but not in the way you might guess | John Abraham
Joe Romm’s new book details the sticky messaging tactics successfully employed by Trump and others
Scientists like me – and really, everyone – can learn from President Donald Trump’s mastery of viral messaging.
True, he has turned the United States into a pariah nation, one reviled for ripping immigrant children from their parents and from withdrawing from our only real chance at stabilizing the climate, the Paris Accord.
UK environment policies in tatters, warn green groups
‘Disastrous decisions’ such as Heathrow expansion and rejection of Swansea tidal lagoon spark concern over government direction
Environmental campaigners and clean air groups have warned that the government’s green credentials are in tatters after a flurry of “disastrous decisions” that they say will be condemned by future generations.
The government’s plan to expand Heathrow won overwhelming backing in the Commons on Monday – with more than 100 Labour MPs joining Tory and SNP politicians to back the plan – despite grave concerns about its impact on air pollution and the UK’s carbon emissions.
Continue reading...Cannabis growth is killing one of the cutest (and fiercest) creatures in the US
The Humboldt marten could soon be an endangered species in California as the weed industry threatens its habitat
Fierce yet adorable, Humboldt martens have been described as the west coast’s own Tasmanian devils. The biologist Tierra Curry compares the red-chested mammal to another small, tenacious creature: “It’s a kitten that thinks it’s a honey badger,” she said. “It will crawl right into a bee nest and eat the honeycomb and larvae, getting its face stung the whole time.”
But there are some dangers that the marten cannot withstand – such as marijuana cultivation.
Continue reading...One football pitch of forest lost every second in 2017, data reveals
Global deforestation is on an upward trend, jeopardising efforts to tackle climate change and the massive decline in wildlife
The world lost more than one football pitch of forest every second in 2017, according to new data from a global satellite survey, adding up to an area equivalent to the whole of Italy over the year.
Continue reading...'There is no oak left': are Britain's trees disappearing?
The first national ‘tree champion’ is charged with reversing the fortunes of the country’s woodlands and beleaguered urban trees
England is running out of oak. The last of the trees planted by the Victorians are now being harvested, and in the intervening century so few have been grown – and fewer still grown in the right conditions for making timber – that imports, mostly from the US and Europe, are the only answer.
“We are now using the oaks our ancestors planted, and there has been no oak coming up to replace it,” says Mike Tustin, chartered forester at John Clegg and Co, the woodland arm of estate agents Strutt and Parker. “There is no oak left in England. There just is no more.”
Continue reading...Senate launches inquiry into threatened species 'extinction crisis'
Inquiry initiated by Greens follows Guardian investigation exposing funding and management failings
The Senate has launched an inquiry into Australia’s threatened species crisis after an investigation of national threatened species management by Guardian Australia revealed problems including poor monitoring and a lack of funding.
The inquiry, initiated by Greens senator Janet Rice and supported by Labor and crossbenchers on Wednesday, will examine issues including the country’s alarming rate of species decline, the adequacy of Commonwealth laws that are supposed to protect threatened wildlife, and the effectiveness of funding for threatened species.
Farmers' groups withhold data from $9m Great Barrier Reef water quality program
The government-funded program was designed to reduce polluted run-off to the reef
Agriculture industry groups have refused to show the Queensland government the results of a government-funded program that aims to improve Great Barrier Reef water quality.
The Queensland Audit Office, in a report to parliament, said the farming industry groups had withheld data about the best management practices program due to “privacy concerns” and that its effectiveness might be “overstated”.
Continue reading...Country diary: take me to the river where Cambria looks like Cumbria
Dolgellau, Gwynedd: The similarity of this corner of Wales to the landscape of the southern Lake District is striking
The path by the Afon Wnion was liberally scattered with small branches and twigs still carrying tattered leaves, the debris of the storm the previous night. The wind had moderated slightly but the flag on St Mary’s church still stood out strongly from the pole on the tower. Beyond it, the severe northern flanks of Cadair Idris slid in and out of focus as clouds swept across the mountain, their speed reinforcing my doubts about taking a high-level route alone. Today, I decided, was one for the lowlands – a decision that, coincidentally, allowed time for a cooked breakfast.
Continue reading...Could seaweed solve Indonesia's plastic crisis?
In a country of more than 17000 islands, seaweed might be the ideal raw material for a bio-plastics revolution.
Indonesia produces more marine plastic pollution than any other country except China. This is perhaps unsurprising: the world’s biggest archipelago is also its fourth most populous. Limited income and cash flow means that poorer communities rely on cheap single-use plastics like bags, water cups and shampoo sachets. Waste management systems are rudimentary and each year millions of tonnes of trash ends up in waterways and eventually the ocean.
Last year Indonesia pledged US$1 billion to cut its marine waste by 70% by 2025. The country will have to tackle the issue on multiple fronts if this ambitious target is to be met. Besides changing consumer habits and improving waste management infrastructure, industry needs to move away from single use plastics and quickly introduce and scale up biodegradable alternatives.
Bumblebees thrive in towns more than countryside
Urban bumblebees have better access to food, allowing them to produce more offspring
Bumblebee colonies fare better in villages and cities than in fields, research has revealed.
Bumblebees are important pollinators, but face threats including habitat loss, climate change, pesticide and fungicide use and parasites. Now researchers say that bumblebee colonies in urban areas not only produce more offspring than those on agricultural land, but have more food stores, fewer invasions from parasitic “cuckoo” bumblebees, and survive for longer.
Continue reading...The environmental impact of a third runway at Heathrow | Letters
This government’s decision to create more pollution at Heathrow (Report, 26 June) while simultaneously rejecting tidal power in Swansea Bay (Report, 26 June) shows it has no strategy for tackling climate change.
Although aviation only contributes about 2% of global emissions of carbon dioxide, it accounts for over 6% of global warming due the effects of other greenhouse gases and vapour trails. The upcoming report by the UK Committee on Climate Change shows that a third runway will increase CO2 emissions from air travel from 37 to 43 million tonnes per annum. But since our overall carbon budget will have fallen by 2030 to 344 million tonnes, the contribution from aviation will have jumped from 6.5% to 12.5% of the UK’s carbon emissions. In other words, a third runway is incompatible with the UK’s climate commitments, and things will only get worse post-Brexit.
Dr Robin Russell-Jones
Marlow, Buckinghamshire
Palm oil ‘disastrous’ for wildlife but here to stay, experts warn
The deforestation it causes is decimating species such as orangutans and tigers - but the alternatives could be worse, finds authoritative report
It is consumed daily by billions of people but palm oil is “disastrous” for wildlife such as orangutans and tigers, according to an authoritative new report. However, the analysis warns that alternatives are likely to drive biodiversity losses elsewhere, rather than halt them.
The analysis, from the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), found that rainforest destruction caused by palm oil plantations damages more than 190 threatened species on the IUCN’s red list, particularly in Indonesia and Malaysia. It also found that palm oil certified as “sustainable” is, so far, only marginally better in terms of preventing deforestation.
Continue reading...Rising seas: 'Florida is about to be wiped off the map'
Sea level rises are not some distant threat. For many Americans they are very real. In an extract from her chilling new book, Rising, Elizabeth Rush details how the US coastline will be radically transformed in the coming years
In 1890, just over six thousand people lived in the damp lowlands of south Florida. Since then the wetlands that covered half the state have been largely drained, strip malls have replaced Seminole camps, and the population has increased a thousandfold. Over roughly the same amount of time the number of black college degree holders in the United States also increased a thousandfold, as did the speed at which we fly, the combined carbon emissions of the Middle East, and the entire population of Thailand.
About 60 of the region’s more than 6 million residents have gathered in the Cox Science Building at the University of Miami on a sunny Saturday morning in 2016 to hear Harold Wanless, or Hal, chair of the geology department, speak about sea level rise. “Only 7% of the heat being trapped by greenhouse gases is stored in the atmosphere,” Hal begins. “Do you know where the other 93% lives?”
Continue reading...Recycling: Senate inquiry recommends all single-use plastics be banned
A national container deposit scheme should be established in response to the recycling crisis, the report says
A Senate inquiry into Australia’s recycling crisis has recommended that all single-use plastics – which could potentially include takeaway containers, chip packets and coffee cups with plastic linings – be banned by 2023.
The wide-ranging report also recommends the establishment of a national container deposit scheme as a response to an unfolding crisis in Australian recycling that forced some councils to tip their recycling into landfill.
Continue reading...