The Guardian
Don't turn to the military to solve the climate-change crisis
Warning about conflicts, wars and mass migration is the wrong way to approach things
The Australian Senate’s declaration last month that climate change is a “current and existential national security risk” was clearly intended to inject much-needed urgency into the country’s climate policy stalemate. Bringing together the unusual bedfellows of military generals and environmentalists to warn about the dangers of climate change, it has the possibility to break though Australia’s culture wars on the issue. However, by framing climate change as a security matter, it also has significant consequences in shaping how we respond to a warming planet. As the climate crisis unfolds, is the military the institution we want to turn to for solutions?
Letters: Sir Richard Body had a strong sense of history
Giles Oakley writes: On the one occasion I met the Tory MP Sir Richard Body he made a great impression. In 1987 I was interviewing him for a BBC2 Open Space documentary entitled Aggro Chemicals presented by self-taught scientist and campaigning organic dairy farmer Mark Purdey.
Sir Richard supported Mark in his principled refusal to comply with a Ministry of Agriculture order to apply an organic phosphate-based compound on his cattle to prevent a hypothetical infestation of warble fly. Mark, preferring his own organic treatment, took the matter all the way to the high court, and won.
Continue reading...Farming and humanity versus the environment | Letters
One fundamental point has been overlooked by Kevin Rushby in his article about the plight of the countryside due to agriculture (The killing fields, G2, 31 May). There has been no intensification of agriculture in the UK for 25 years.
Government statistics show pesticide and fertiliser use has been significantly reduced. There are fewer crops grown and the numbers of pigs, sheep and cattle have fallen. So to point the finger at farming as the cause of environmental degradation through intensification makes no sense, especially when you consider the other changes that have taken place in that time – increased housebuilding, more roads, and more cars on those roads – and the impact they have had on the country’s landscape.
Continue reading...What was the fallout from Fukushima?
Shunichi Yamashita knows a lot of about the health effects of radiation. But he is a pariah in his home country of Japan, because he insists on telling those evacuated after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident that the hazards are much less than they suppose. Could he be right?
Yamashita was born in Nagasaki in 1952, seven years after the world’s second atomic weapon obliterated much of the city. “My mother was 16 years old when the bomb dropped and she was two miles away,” he told me at his office in the city, where he still lives with his mother, who is now 88.
Continue reading...Rewilding success stories
In May, Dutch and Romanian European bison reintroduction programmes were declared successful after several years of conservation efforts. The Dutch project began back in 2007; the wild cattle had been extinct in that region for two centuries. Now, though, both national parks in question are reaping great environmental benefits from the bisons’ grazing, with a consequent flourishing of flora and fauna.
Continue reading...Eerie silence falls on Shetland cliffs that once echoed to seabirds’ cries
Sumburgh Head lies at the southern tip of mainland Shetland. This dramatic 100-metre-high rocky spur, crowned with a lighthouse built by Robert Louis Stevenson’s grandfather, has a reputation for being one of the biggest and most accessible seabird colonies in Britain.
Thousands of puffins, guillemots, razorbills, kittiwakes and fulmars gather there every spring to breed, covering almost every square inch of rock or grass with teeming, screeching birds and their young.
Continue reading...When the sweet turns sour: Queensland split between sugar and solar
As solar farms spread across the central agricultural regions of the sunshine state, opponents are becoming increasingly vocal
Colin Ash has spent a working lifetime in the cane fields near the Pioneer River in central Queensland, out past Marian, where the mill has processed sugar for more than 130 years.
“You can’t get sentimental about things,” he says from the front seat of his truck as he drives slowly around the boundary of his property. “You’ve got to pay your bills.”
Continue reading...Whale dies from eating more than 80 plastic bags
Pilot whale was found barely alive in Thai canal and vomited up five bags during fruitless rescue attempts
A whale has died in southern Thailand after swallowing more than 80 plastic bags, with rescuers failing to nurse the mammal back to health.
The small male pilot whale was found barely alive in a canal near the border with Malaysia, the country’s department of marine and coastal resources said.
Continue reading...Bairnsdale's bat battle – photo essay
A 10-year fight between a group of residents and the East Gippsland shire council over grey-headed flying foxes is heating up again
The Australian town of Bairnsdale in Victoria – 300km east of Melbourne – is known as the gateway to east Gippsland’s natural wonders. It is also the scene of a 10-year battle between a group of residents and the East Gippsland shire council over a colony of grey-headed flying foxes that roost along the town’s Mitchell River.
In 2014, the council received federal government approval to clear critical habitat in a three-stage process, the first occurring in 2015. The debate is now heating up in the approach of stage-two clearing, which the council intends to complete by the end of 2018.
Continue reading...Up in smoke: what did taxpayers get for their $2bn emissions fund?
Before the latest auction figures, Adam Morton investigates the plan Turnbull once called ‘a recipe for fiscal recklessness’
At some point in June, the Australian government will announce it has spent up to $2.3bn over three years on a scheme that the prime minister believes is a reckless waste of public money.
Related: Land-clearing wipes out $1bn taxpayer-funded emissions gains
Continue reading...Country diary: coated with algae, the crab looks like an aquatic Green Man
Start Point, Devon: Spider crabs rub pieces of seaweed against the backs of their shells until they stick, creating remarkable camouflage
The combe above the beach echoes with the calls of chiffchaffs, and cock stonechats flick and churr on the wind-stunted hawthorns that line the footpath. Around the twin radio masts – a 20th-century riposte to Start Point’s whitewashed gothic lighthouse – a small flock of swallows cut and swerve.
Beneath the sea there are signs of spring too. Common spider crabs (Maja brachydactyla), which have been overwintering in the depths, start to appear close to shore, a sight that has become a feature of my first sea swims of the year.
Continue reading...Victoria pledges to remove 1,200 brumbies to protect alps and calls on NSW to act
Environment minister says up to 2,500 wild horses are causing ‘significant damage’ to plant and animal species
The Victorian government has signed off on a plan to remove more than 1,200 feral horses from the Alpine national park, saying the impact of the animals on sensitive ecosystems has reached critical levels.
Two weeks ago the New South Wales government announced a proposal to protect Kosciuszko national park brumbies, which conservation advocates have labelled a “disaster” for Australia’s environmental heritage.
Continue reading...Cuadrilla secures new injunction against fracking protesters
Energy firm obtains expanded injunction ahead of plans to begin large-scale fracking at Preston New Road site
A major energy firm has secured an expanded injunction against protesters after it took a big step towards starting fracking on a substantial scale.
Cuadrilla Resources went to court to obtain the injunction against all campaigners who opposed its drilling operations at its Preston New Road site in Lancashire. The injunction was granted on Friday on a temporary basis amid growing criticism of the corporate use of injunctions to counter protests. At least five companies have chosen to use them as legal weapons in this way.
Continue reading...Businesses will act on climate despite Trump, says ex-UN climate chief
Christiana Figueres was also scathing of those who say it is inevitable that the global warming limit set out in the Paris agreement will be broken
Businesses are moving forward faster than ever on climate change despite the intransigence of US president Donald Trump, the former climate chief of the UN has said.
“There is a big difference between the economics of climate change and the politics of climate change,” said Christiana Figueres, the former executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention of Climate Change, who oversaw the landmark Paris agreement on climate change.
Continue reading...Sideline staples in the Guardian to save the planet | Letters
May I ask all those readers who want their Guardian stapled (How the humble stapler came to one reader’s aid, 28 May) to consider the ecological effects of ther preference. The Guardian comes on weekdays in three sections, one part only using two staples. Given a circulation (ABC) of 142,318, the Guardian already thus uses 284,636 staples Monday to Friday. Each one is roughly 3cm long. So for every weekday the Guardian itself uses over 8.5km of steel. I don’t have a set of scales to weigh anything less than a quarter of an ounce, but that’s a hefty reel of steel every day. Bet you it’s Chinese, too, and most will end up as rust.
So, green-thinking Guardian readers: join the campaign to banish the staple and help save the planet. Take responsibilty for your pages, grasp the sides fully and say no to staples. You know it makes sense.
John Loader
Leyburn, North Yorkshire
The week in wildlife – in pictures
Blue-throated bee-eaters, a baby anteater and a dehydrated fruitbat are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world
Continue reading...Greenpeace activists abseil into Total's AGM – video
Four Greenpeace activists climb down into Total's AGM to protest against the oil company’s plans to drill in the mouth of the Amazon and French Guiana. The abseilers descended as the Total chief executive, Patrick Pouyanné, began his presentation, while many people protested outside the venue
Continue reading...Antibiotic apocalypse: EU scraps plans to tackle drug pollution, despite fears of rising resistance
Leaked documents reveal discarded proposals to ward off antibiotic resistance through closer scrutiny of drug firms
The EU has scrapped plans for a clampdown on pharmaceutical pollution that contributes to the spread of deadly superbugs.
Plans to monitor farm and pharmaceutical companies, to add environmental standards to EU medical product rules and to oblige environmental risk assessments for drugs used by humans have all been discarded, leaked documents seen by the Guardian reveal.
Continue reading...The New York pigeon – in pictures
Andrew Garn is a native New Yorker who grew up surrounded by the city’s ubiquitous pigeons. For over a decade he has photographed, rehabilitated and observed the birds, documenting the entire spectrum of their development from newborn “squeakers” to fully fledged adults. The New York Pigeon: Behind the Feathers by Andrew Garn, with text by Emily S Rueb and Rita McMahon, is published by powerHouse Books
Continue reading...The festival putting Edinburgh on the international cycling map | Kim Harding
It’s not perfect, but the city has ambitious plans for cycling, and the Festival of Cycling offers a chance to celebrate progress
In theory, Edinburgh might not look like the perfect city for cycling. Apart from the weather there are the (in)famous hills, then there’s the … (add your own excuses here.) But things are changing.
Currently the city council is committing 10% of its transport budget to cycling, a first for a UK city, as well as introducing 20mph speed limits across a large area. And in September, Edinburgh will finally be getting its own bikeshare scheme, which will include a proportion of e-bikes to help beat the hills.