The Guardian
'Mini-Holland' schemes have proved their worth in outer London boroughs | Peter Walker
First formal study into their impact finds that boroughs with the schemes have boosted walking and cycling rates
The so-called mini-Holland schemes – much-debated changes to boost cycling and walking in outer London boroughs – have done precisely that, according to the first formal study into their impact.
The research found that after one year, people living in parts of such boroughs were, on average, walking and cycling for 41 minutes a week more than those living in comparable areas.
Continue reading...Grayling to face legal action over Heathrow expansion plan
Four councils back move, claiming proposal will not survive ‘independent, lawful and rational’ scrutiny
The transport secretary, Chris Grayling, is facing a fresh headache over Heathrow as a group of councils confirmed they were planning legal action against expansion, just hours after MPs voted overwhelmingly to back a third runway.
In an embarrassing blow for Theresa May, Conservative-run Windsor and Maidenhead, the prime minister’s own local council, suggested after Monday night’s vote that it was seriously considering joining the judicial review.
Continue reading...The amazing return of the starfish: species triumphs over melting disease
After a mysterious ‘mass mortality event’ turned ochre stars to goo, experts say rapid evolution may have saved the creatures
Five years after a mysterious virus wiped out millions of starfish off the western coast of North America, causing them to lose legs, dissolve into fleshy goo and taking various species to the brink of disappearance, scientists have announced a remarkable reversal.
Continue reading...Country diary: delighted by daisies
Allendale, Northumberland: Growing abundantly along motorways, these pristine white flowers with their yellow centres have an endearing simplicity, like a child’s drawing
Driving north from Newcastle up the A1 there’s an upside to the slowing traffic. It’s an opportunity to look at the high embankments on either side that are crowded with oxeye daisies, Leucanthemum vulgare. Growing abundantly along motorways, these pristine white flowers with their yellow centres have an endearing simplicity, like a child’s drawing. Mixed among them I can see the yellow of buttercup, mauve of vetch, sharp pink of campion and isolated patches of red clover. Lower down, near the gritty edges of the road, are canary-yellow sprawls of bird’s foot trefoil, colours that have mostly been banished from farmland.
I grow all those wildflowers in my garden. All have nectar for bees, butterflies and hoverflies. The golden centre of the daisy head is not one flower but many, a composite of tiny disc florets, each containing food for insects. A grass path curves through my small perennial meadow, where chimney sweeper moths flicker between umbels of pignut and ragged robin. As I pause there in the evening light, there’s a delicacy to the planting with its fine grasses and small bursts of colour. On tall stems, the oxeye daisies glow as the sun drops behind the wood.
Continue reading...MPs vote in favour of third runway for Heathrow – video
MPs have voted in favour of building a new runway at London’s Heathrow airport, paving the way for expansion after decades of delays and policy U-turns. The 415 to 119 vote was missed by the most high profile opponent Boris Johnson, who once said he would ‘lie down in front of bulldozers’ to stop the expansion. He was in Afghanistan and came in for criticism from Tory MPs for sidestepping the embarrassment of either not supporting the government or breaking his word
Continue reading...Waste crisis: where's your recycling going now?
China’s limits on contamination levels have sparked a recycling industry crisis. What are local and state governments doing to solve the problem?
“Did you put the recycling out?”
It’s a phrase regularly recited in millions of households across Australia, followed by a hollow rumble as the yellow-lidded wheelie bin is hauled to the curb. It’s a ritual that, in one form or another, takes place in more than 90% of Australian homes.
Continue reading...Where have all the butterflies gone? | Brief letters
I don’t know whether to be happy or sad. No cabbage white butterfly caterpillars chomping through my veg is great, but where have all the butterflies gone (Letters, passim)? Not only have I not seen a single cabbage white butterfly this year but no red admirals, no peacocks and no tortoiseshells. Very worrying.
Peter Hanson
Exeter
• As she dissected the subtle and not so subtle outrages of patriarchy experienced from Virginia Woolf to “labouring women in Mexico”, I wonder what discretion or inhibition Charlotte Higgins (Patriarchy: the return of a radical idea, 22 June) exercised not to mention the pronounced patriarchy in the Catholic church (the Holy Father for goodness sake), the male-delineated roles in ultra-orthodox Judaism, and in the various iterations (institutional or cultural) of Islam, all elided (that is to say obscured) in the one word reference to “religion”.
Philip Stogdon
London
Red deer on the Isle of Rum – in pictures
A team of six scientists has descended on Rum, a small island in the Inner Hebrides on the west coast of Scotland, to catch red deer calves. During the month-long initiative, overseen by the Isle of Rum Red Deer Project, newborns will be tagged so data can be gathered on them over the course of their lifetimes. The island is home to hundreds of deer and about only 30 people, all of whom live in Kinloch village on the east coast
Continue reading...Flying cameras to spot lethal disease sweeping through world's olive groves
Fast-spreading Xylella fastidiosa is devastating species from citrus to oak trees, but can now be detected from the air
A devastating and fast-spreading infection killing olive trees and grapevines around the world can now be detected from the air, long before symptoms are visible to the human eye.
The new technique offers hope in the battle against one of the world’s most dangerous plant pathogens, which can infect 350 different species, including citrus and almond trees, as well as oaks, elms and sycamores. Special “hyperspectral” cameras provide an early warning system by detecting subtle changes in leaf colour.
Continue reading...Johnson criticised over decision to miss crunch Heathrow vote
Fellow Tory MPs say foreign secretary should resign over opposition to third runway
Boris Johnson is facing growing criticism from fellow Conservative MPs over his decision to miss Monday night’s crunch vote on Heathrow despite his claim that resigning over his opposition to a third runway would achieve “absolutely nothing”.
The foreign secretary, who is on a visit to Afghanistan, said he would continue to oppose the £14bn third runway with his ministerial colleagues behind closed doors.
Continue reading...Heathrow airport: how MPs are likely to vote on the third runway
The positions of parties and key players before the Commons vote on expansion
On Monday evening MPs will vote on whether or not Heathrow airport should have a third runway. It is a deeply factious issue and, not unexpectedly, the divisions are complex.
Continue reading...30 years later, deniers are still lying about Hansen’s amazing global warming prediction | Dana Nuccitelli
Koch paychecks seem to be strong motivators to lie
30 years ago, James Hansen testified to Congress about the dangers of human-caused climate change. In his testimony, Hansen showed the results of his 1988 study using a climate model to project future global warming under three possible scenarios, ranging from ‘business as usual’ heavy pollution in his Scenario A to ‘draconian emissions cuts’ in Scenario C, with a moderate Scenario B in between.
Changes in the human effects that influence Earth’s global energy imbalance (a.k.a. ‘anthropogenic radiative forcings’) have in reality been closest to Hansen’s Scenario B, but about 20–30% weaker thanks to the success of the Montreal Protocol in phasing out chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). Hansen’s climate model projected that under Scenario B, global surface air temperatures would warm about 0.84°C between 1988 and 2017. But with a global energy imbalance 20–30% lower, it would have predicted a global surface warming closer to 0.6–0.7°C by this year.
Continue reading...Government cautiously optimistic on Heathrow vote, says Grayling
Transport secretary claims strong support across political spectrum for third runway
The government is “cautiously optimistic” about winning a key parliamentary vote on the expansion of Heathrow airport, the transport secretary, Chris Grayling, has said, defending the controversial idea as being good for the whole of the UK.
The Conservatives, who have a three-line whip in place for their MPs, are likely to get significant Labour support in the vote on Monday after Unite called for Labour MPs to back the third runway.
Continue reading...Record emissions keep Australia on path to missing Paris target
Annual carbon emissions, excluding unreliable data, higher than ever, report says
Australia’s emissions over the past year were again the highest on record when unreliable data from land use and forestry sectors are excluded, according to new data from NDEVR Environmental.
If the country’s greenhouse gas emissions continue on their current trajectory, Australia will miss its Paris target by a billion tonnes of CO2, which is equal to about two years of Australia’s entire national emissions.
Baffled by the flight of the dragonfly - Country diary archive, 25 June 1918
25 June 1918 Without apparent effort they dash with incredible speed to one side or the other, or even backwards or forwards
Slim-bodied, brilliantly blue dragonflies dart above the waterside vegetation, then suddenly stop themselves and cling to an upright stem, wings extended wide, long legs clasping with angled “elbows.” They do not dash themselves against the plant they aim for. Poised in the air as if suspended are the buzzing hover-flies, their wings moving so rapidly that we only see a blur. Without apparent effort they dash with incredible speed to one side or the other, or even backwards or forwards; we see a line flash across our field of vision, and there the insect is, hovering again five yards away, or maybe back in the same spot from which it suddenly vanished.
Related: Photographing dragonflies is easier than you think | Mike Averill
Continue reading...Toronto pay-what-you-can store aims to tackle landfills and hunger
Initiative aims to reduce dumping of ‘waste’ and sell it at prices set by buyers
In a bright, airy Toronto market, the shelves are laden with everything from organic produce to pre-made meals and pet food. What shoppers won’t find, however, is price tags. In what is believed to be a North American first, everything in this grocery store is pay-what-you-can.
The new store aims to tackle food insecurity and wastage by pitting the two issues against each other, said Jagger Gordon, the Toronto chef who launched the venture earlier this month.
Continue reading...Len McCluskey at odds with Corbyn over Heathrow expansion
Union boss and Corbyn ally urges all Labour MPs to back expansion ahead of third runway vote
Len McCluskey has written to all Labour MPs urging them to back Heathrow expansion on Monday, a move that puts the head of the Unite union directly at odds with Jeremy Corbyn.
He said they had “the opportunity to create hundreds of thousands of new jobs” by backing the government’s decision to build a third runway.
Continue reading...New NT gasfields would put Paris commitment in doubt
‘There’s no room for any new long-term fossil fuel developments,’ climate scientists say
A gas boom in the Northern Territory would contribute as much as 6.6% to Australia’s annual emissions, according to data in a report from an inquiry examining the risks associated with fracking.
The final report by the inquiry’s committee assessed the emissions from exploration, producing gas from the planned new gasfields and from burning that proportion of the gas destined for the domestic market.
Continue reading...Frogs and dragon flies in a deadly duel | Letters
Your report (21 June) urging gardeners to be frog friendly is, of course, to be welcomed. However, cherishing amphibians raises a dilemma because one of the major threats to frog populations is predation by dragon fly larvae, rapacious creatures up to two inches long and said to be capable of eating anything not bigger than themselves. This year not a single froglet will emerge from my pond, despite the protection given to the frog spawn during the late snow and frost. The entire population of tadpoles has been eaten by dragon fly larvae. The fact that the adult dragon fly is a magnificent creature in its own right, and, like adult frogs and toads, eats creatures we might regard as garden pests, leaves me in a quandary: is it OK to kill dragon flies to protect frogs, or should I leave it to nature to sort itself out?
Peter Malpass
Bristol
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Continue reading...Genetically modified animals
Last week, scientists from the University of Edinburgh’s Roslin Institute announced they had deleted the section of DNA that leaves pigs vulnerable to porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome, which is estimated to cost European farmers £1.5bn a year in loss of livestock and decreased productivity. Genetically modified animals are banned from the EU food chain, but since this is a new and different technique it’s possible they’ll be appearing in bacon sandwiches in a few years.
Continue reading...