The Guardian
Source public sector food from UK post-Brexit, farmers say
NHS, schools, government and other services should use UK ingredients for food wherever possible, according to proposals
Food procured for Britain’s public sector after Brexit should be sourced from the UK wherever possible, the biggest farming organisation has said.
Promised sweeping reforms of food and farming have been cast by ministers as a flagship policy that will unlock some of the biggest potential benefits from Brexit. But farmers fear they will lose the £3bn-a-year taxpayer subsidy they enjoy under EU rules and be hamstrung by subsidised competition from Europe.
Continue reading...Humanity Dick and the meat industry | Letters
“Humanity Dick” (real name Richard Martin), who got the Cruel and Improper Treatment of Cattle Act that you mention in your briefing (What is the true cost of meat?, 7 May) passed in 1822, was the owner of Ballynahinch Castle in Connemara.
In the middle of Ballynahinch Lough there is a small island; Humanity Dick used to have anybody he found mistreating animals rowed out there and marooned until they repented of their crimes. He was particularly hard on anybody who mistreated donkeys it seems.
Continue reading...'It's all about vested interests': untangling conspiracy, conservatism and climate scepticism | Graham Readfearn
Study across 24 countries suggests the fossil fuel industry has reshaped conservative political values in the US and Australia
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If you reckon the 11 September terrorist attacks might have been an “inside job” or there is a nefarious new world order doing whatever it is the illuminati do, what are you likely to think about the causes of climate change?
Academics have suggested that people who tend to accept conspiracy theories also underplay or reject the science showing humans are causing rapid and dangerous climate change.
Continue reading...Global warming will depress economic growth in Trump country | Dana Nuccitelli
It’s global warming that will hurt the economy in red states, not a carbon tax.
A working paper recently published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond concludes that global warming could significantly slow economic growth in the US.
Specifically, rising summertime temperatures in the hottest states will curb economic growth. And the states with the hottest summertime temperatures are all located in the South: Florida, Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, Arkansas, and Arizona. All of these states voted for Donald Trump in 2016.
Continue reading...Adani losses prompt mining company to shift away from imported coal
Results show Carmichael mine in Queensland no longer a viable proposition, analysts say
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Adani’s coal-fired power business has reported more heavy losses, prompting the Indian conglomerate to announce it would shift away from using expensive imported coal.
Analysts say the fourth-quarter financial results for Adani Power, a subsidiary of the Adani group, showed the proposed Carmichael mega-mine in Queensland was no longer a viable proposition.
Continue reading...Italy's festival of snake-catchers – in pictures
The festival of snake-catchers (festa dei serpari) in Cocullo, Italy, is an annual religious procession in which the St Dominic’s statue is carried in procession, covered with living snakes
Continue reading...Country diary 1918: delicious mixture of scents in the Surrey air
9 May 1918 The plantations here are very varied – pine and spruce and Scotch fir and larch, mixed with beech and birch and oak
Wotton (Surrey) May 8.
The twisted, angular stems of the “Hurts” (as whortle-berries are called in Surrey) have broken into leaves, tinted red and brown, and the heath-like flowers hang little lanterns all over the bushes. These flowers take on a bright pink light when the sun shines through them.
All about this country a great deal of tree-felling is being done, but some care is being taken to disfigure the scene as little as possible. The skyline is often preserved and the edges of roads, so that until you penetrate into the woods, you do not find the havoc. The plantations here are very varied – pine and spruce and Scotch fir and larch, mixed with beech and birch and oak. The air is full of a delicious mixture of scents – the resin of the conifers, the fruity, cocoa-nut smell of the gorse in sunshine, the indescribably personal smell of young bracken. No tree, perhaps, is more irregular in coming out than the beech. In the same tree there will be a few lower branches in full leaf while all the rest is dormant. There are whole plantations which still show the uniform glowing red-brown of the tightly scrolled buds; in others the pale green leaves, incredibly tender, are still fringed with silver hairs. A few oaks make patches of golden green. The wayfaring tree is almost as grey as a carnation leaf, its umbels still tightly folded in their felted covering. From the junipers, as you brush by them, rise clouds of sulphur-coloured pollen; the whole prickly little bush has a glaucous tint, and so have the last year’s fruits which cluster along the stem.
Continue reading...Impending blight: how Statoil's plans threaten the Great Australian Bight
Supporters say the oil firm has experience drilling in rough seas but conservationists fear damage to wildlife and fisheries
The cold and violent waters of the Great Australian Bight are home to one of the country’s most biodiverse and important marine ecosystems, the heart of its fishing industry, a growing tourism hotspot – and potentially its newest oil field.
Of the species in the bight, 85% are found nowhere else on the planet. It is a breeding ground for the endangered southern right whale and a feeding zone for Australian sea lions, great white sharks, migratory sperm whales and short-tailed shearwaters.
Livia Firth: It’s not realistic to think we're going to be in a world without leather or wool
Environmental fashion campaigner visits Tasmania to learn about wool production, its impact on the environment and mulesing
Livia Firth still has the wool sweaters she wore as a teenager. The environmental fashion campaigner, who grew up in Italy, remembers hand washing her sweaters each summer, carefully storing them away, then unpacking them the following winter. She would wear them year after year so she had to look after them. This was before fast, disposable fashion she says, “We did it a different way.”
These days, as the founder of Eco-Age, a brand consultancy firm that works with luxury fashion labels on improving their sustainability credentials, and as someone who makes frequent appearances on the red carpet alongside her Oscar-winning husband actor Colin Firth, she has an expanded wardrobe – yet it’s probably not as big as you may imagine. In 2010 Firth came up with the Green Carpet Challenge, using her visibility in front of the world’s media to wear only ethical, sustainable and repurposed fashion, and she’s often photographed repeatedly wearing the same gowns as part of her #30wears pledge.
Continue reading...Cracks in nuclear reactor threaten UK energy policy
Problems at Hunterston B in Scotland trigger doubts over six other 1970s and 80s plants
The government’s energy policy is under renewed pressure after the prolonged closure of one of Britain’s oldest nuclear reactors because of cracks in its graphite core raised questions over the future of six other plants built in the 1970s and 1980s.
The temporary shutdown of reactor three at Hunterston B in Scotland is also expected to burn an estimated £120m hole in the revenues of its owner, EDF Energy. The firm said this week that it was taking the reactor offline for six months after inspections revealed more cracks than expected.
Continue reading...New law to tackle electric cars’ silent menace to pedestrians
Sound emitters will give warning of vehicles travelling at low speeds
They are green, clean and make very little noise. It is this latter quality, initially seen by many as a good thing, that has become an acute concern for safety campaigners, who fear that the rising number of electric vehicles constitutes a silent menace.
When they travel at under 20mph the vehicles can barely be heard, especially by cyclists or pedestrians listening to music through headphones. “The greatest risks associated with electric vehicles are when they are travelling at low speeds, such as in urban areas with lower limits, as the noise from tyres and the road surface, and aerodynamic noise, are minimal at those speeds,” said Kevin Clinton, from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents.
Continue reading...English Heritage plans to restore ‘great lost garden’ of Alexander Pope
The restoration, even at huge cost, of what English Heritage calls one of “the great lost gardens of London” sounds a worthwhile, even noble, project. But what if that “lost garden” is a myth, a pipe dream never really built? English Heritage plans to transform the estate of Marble Hill, a grand house by the Thames, by reintroducing elaborate gardens it says were inspired by Alexander Pope, the satirist and poet, and 18th-century royal garden designer Charles Bridgeman.
The original designs featured a ninepin bowling alley, an ice-house seat and a flower garden, surrounded by twisting paths and groves of trees and English Heritage plans to recreate all this, alongside a “vibrant” cafe and children’s play area.
Continue reading...New Mexico: fossilized tracks point to ice age hunters who tracked giant sloth
Tracks in White Sands national monument suggest hunters tracked 8ft creature with long arms and sharp claws – but it’s unclear why
Researchers studying a trail of fossilized footprints on a remote New Mexico salt flat have determined that the tracks tell the story of a group of ice age hunters stalking a giant sloth.
Scientist David Bustos said the tracks, both adult and children’s footprints found at White Sands National Monument, showed people followed a giant ground sloth, purposely stepping in their tracks as they did so.
Continue reading...Israel has its first Grand Tour – but will it get people on their bikes?
Billionaire bike-lover Sylvan Adams has a dream to get Israel cycling – he funded the Middle East’s first velodrome, gave car-centric Tel Aviv a cycle network, and is behind the country’s first Grand Tour. But will it work?
While some wealthy benefactors to Israel choose to plant forests, build scenic promenades or put their names on hospitals, Sylvan Adams loves cycling so much he seed-funded some cycleways to help transform Tel Aviv into the “Amsterdam of the Middle East”.
The Canadian real-estate billionaire also supplied cash to build a new velodrome – the first in the Middle East – and created a professional Israeli cycling team. He also stumped up some of the £9m fee for staging the first three stages of the 101st Giro d’Italia in Israel, which kicked off yesterday.
Country diary: a rock saga played out on the sea front
Barns Ness, East Lothian: Pools teem with tiny creatures and fossilised coral demands attention – the whole place is dense with life, old and new
Out on the headland at Barns Ness, the strand is pitted with rockpools and slung with seaweed of all textures. Bladderwrack and fleecy gutweed and long-tailed oarweed and sugar kelp lie heaped upon one another, slick and slippery underfoot. The pools themselves seem empty on first approach, but after a minute’s silent watch they come to life: periwinkles inching almost imperceptibly along, shore crabs sidling from under rocks with a suspicious air, and – best of all – tiny hermit crabs in their pilfered shells, peeking shyly out, antennae waving.
We have spent a week here in the lighthouse cottages in Barns Ness, waking to the sound of crashing waves beyond the wall. The weather has been temperamental, so when the sun appears we rush out the door and down to the shoreline. Today the clouds are strung high and thin in the sky, and the sun casts a great halo around itself – a ring of light that encircles the lighthouse too, and the peregrine falcon that perches on its rail.
Continue reading...Michael Gove leading plan to ban sale of new hybrid cars from 2040
Environment secretary favours the move but it is hotly contested within government
Michael Gove is spearheading plans to halt the sale of new hybrid cars from 2040 to help tackle UK air pollution, Whitehall sources have said.
Ministers have been battling privately over whether or not to ban hybrids to strengthen the government’s policy of banning new diesel vehicles in 22 years time.
Continue reading...Wet wipe pollution, air quality, and talking plants – 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...The week in wildlife – in pictures
A marmot emerging from hibernation, a friendly elephant and a baby ring-tailed lemur are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world
Continue reading...One-third of Australia's threatened species are not monitored
Governments often lack necessary data to determine if conservation measures are effective, says review’s leader
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One-third of Australia’s threatened species are not subject to any formal monitoring program and monitoring for the remaining species is largely poorly done, a review has found.
The findings come as the ABC reports the federal environment department could cut up to 60 jobs in its biodiversity and conservation division, which conducts threatened species assessment and monitoring.
Continue reading...Country diary: wild boar have been rotovating the woodland
Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire: They wield their snouts like a blade, slicing into the root layer then slashing vigorously with a deft twist that turns the ground over
You can’t miss the signs of wild boar in the Forest of Dean – the road verges appear to have been enthusiastically but amateurishly rotovated. When we visited in January hundreds of square metres around the car park had been worked over, and it did not take much by way of fieldcraft to spot the culprits. A small sounder (family group) of mother and three young were only metres from the cars, intently truffling for root, grub and worm, a blackbird following them as a gull follows the plough.
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