The Guardian
The quest for bike-friendly children's books in a world where cars rule
From cute cars to smiley emergency vehicles, kids’ culture is awash with rosy images of driving, so a new Mr Men book about cycling is a welcome read. What are your favourite cycling-friendly children’s books?
“Give me the child until he is seven and I will show you the man,” is a maxim usually attributed to the Jesuits, but it’s not only religious institutions that use early years training to hook people for life. There’s a mainstream indoctrination that is considered perfectly normal: the promotion of motoring to children.
Car companies don’t have to pay for this brainwashing; we do it automatically. We sit toddlers on our laps and let them pretend-steer our cars while stationary. We buy babies’ bibs festooned with anthropomorphic trucks and nee-nah emergency vehicles. Pixar’s Cars movie is so popular because the fetishisation of driving is deeply embedded in our society. Motor vehicles are spoon-fed to children as benign, cuddly, and desirable. Passing your driving test remains the preeminent rite of passage into adulthood.
Continue reading...Which items can't be recycled?
Many people think items such as plastic bags and coffee cups can be recycled when they can’t. Here are the do’s and don’ts
British consumers are increasingly willing to recycle their household waste but are failing to grasp the basics, according to the latest research by the British Science Association. Failure to get it right means that a lot of recyclable waste is going to landfill, the BSA says.
The issue is further complicated by inconsistency among councils, which make their own rules and funding decisions on recycling collections.
Continue reading...Kitchen roll among things Britons wrongly think they can recycle
Others include plastic soap dispenser tops and wrapping paper, study shows
British consumers are in the dark about exactly what household waste they can recycle, a new poll has revealed, with plastic soap dispenser tops, kitchen roll and wrapping paper topping the list of things they wrongly consider recyclable.
Research shows that Britons are more aware than ever of how recycling can help the environment. However, the majority are putting out contaminated recycling due to common misunderstandings, thereby doing more harm than good.
Continue reading...Country diary: it clung like a stilt walker to its wavering perches
Farlington Marshes, Hampshire Gazing into the reedbeds, scanning for bearded tits, felt a lot like looking at a magic eye puzzle
Spotting reedbed-dwelling birds is tricky at the best of times, but more so in winter as only one songbird is resident year-round – the bearded tit (Panurus biarmicus). Their common name is somewhat of a misnomer as they are neither bearded nor tits, though with their “ping pong ball on a lolly stick” body shape, they do bear a passing resemblance to long-tailed tits. They are also referred to as bearded parrotbills or bearded reedlings – given that they are entirely dependent on reedbed habitat for their survival, the latter seems most fitting.
At this time of year “beardies” tend to feed out of sight, fossicking through the soil in search of fallen seeds. Their tonal plumage makes it difficult to pick them out as they flit through the bleached stands of Phragmites australis, but eventually I caught sight of a flutter of movement deep in the vegetation. I raised my binoculars for a closer view, but the dense reed monoculture lacked any prominent features to use as a visual point of reference, so I immediately lost sight of my quarry.
Continue reading...Pollutionwatch: Cold snap worsens particle load of air
Particle pollution increases as the wind slows down and chilly weather prompts the lighting of more wood fires
The last days of the “beast from the east” cold spell caused air pollution problems across large parts of the UK, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands. Within the UK particle pollution reached between five and 10 on the UK government’s 10-point scale over parts of south Wales and areas of England south of a Merseyside to Tyneside line, except the far south-west.
Pollution from industry, traffic and home wood and coal burning can stay in the air for a week or up to 10 days. This means that pollution emitted in one part of Europe can cause problems hundreds of miles away. If the wind slows down then particle pollution can build up over a whole region.
Continue reading...Endangered sharks, dolphins and rays killed by shark net trial
Only one target shark caught in NSW nets in two months, while 55 other marine creatures killed or trapped
Shark nets on the New South Wales north coast have caught just a single target shark in the past two months, while continuing to trap or kill dolphins, turtles, and protected marine life.
A single bull shark was caught in the nets around Ballina in January and February, while 55 other animals were either killed or trapped.
Continue reading...Awkward questions about biodiversity | Letters
Damian Carrington are to be congratulated on a wide-ranging and informative article on the urgency and scale of the current global threat to biodiversity and the Guardian (What is biodiversity and why does it matter to us?, theguardian.com, 12 March). However, we of the Beyond Extinction Economics (BEE) network have reservations about the article’s diagnosis of its causes, and proposals for addressing the crisis.
First, to say “we” or “human activity” is responsible for biodiversity loss sidesteps the more serious challenge of identifying the specific socio-cultural, and, more centrally, economic drivers of destruction. Second, to slip easily from population rises to industrial development, housing and farming as the causes of the destruction of wild areas evades critical questions about what sort of industry, producing what sort of consumer goods and what kind of farming and food distribution system – let alone questions as to who has the power to decide and who gets to consume and who doesn’t.
Continue reading...New oil threat looms over England's national park land, campaigners warn
More than 170,000 acres of protected countryside in the south-east face risk of drilling
More than 170,000 acres of protected countryside, including national park land, in the south-east of England are at risk from a new wave of oil drilling, environmental campaigners have warned.
Under threat are areas of outstanding natural beauty in the Weald, which runs between the north and south downs, and the South Downs national park, Greenpeace said.
Continue reading...Who owns water? The US landowners putting barbed wire across rivers
New Mexico is a battleground in the fight over once public waterways, sparking fears it could set a national precedent
As Scott Carpenter and a few friends paddled down the Pecos river in New Mexico last May, taking advantage of spring run-off, the lead boater yelled out and made a swirling hand motion over his head in the universal signal to pull over to shore. The paddlers eddied out in time to avoid running straight through three strings of barbed wire obstructing the river.
Swinging in the wind, the sign hanging from the fence read “PRIVATE PROPERTY: No Trespassing”.
Continue reading...Camera attached to a minke whale captures rare footage – video
For the first time ever, scientists in Antarctica have attached a camera to a minke – one of the most poorly understood of all the whale species. The camera (attached with suction cups) slid down the side of the animal – but stayed attached – providing remarkable video of the way it feeds.
Continue reading...UK car industry must pay up for toxic air 'catastrophe', super-inquiry finds
Unprecedented joint inquiry by four committees of MPs demands polluters pay for air pollution causing ‘national health emergency’
The car industry must pay millions of pounds towards solving the UK’s toxic air crisis under the “polluter pays” principle, according to an unprecedented joint inquiry by four committees of MPs.
The MPs call the poisonous air that causes 40,000 early deaths a year a “national health emergency” and are scathing about the government’s clean air plans. These judged illegal three times in the high court, with the latest plan condemned as “woefully inadequate” by city leaders and “inexcusable” by doctors.
Continue reading...Country diary: this landscape has little to offer a shy fieldfare
Crook, County Durham: starving birds lose their inhibitions if apples are available in gardens
The steep climb from the start of the Deerness Valley Way follows the route of an old rope-worked incline where, a century ago, a stationary engine on the hilltop hauled railway wagons up from Bankfoot coke works. Today it was hard work hauling ourselves up the hill, with every footstep sinking into thawing snow that was still knee-deep in places.
Continue reading...Microplastics found in more than 90% of bottled water, study says
Researchers find levels of plastic fibres in popular bottled water brands could be twice as high as those found in tap water
A new analysis of some of the world’s most popular bottled water brands says more than 90% contain tiny pieces of plastic.
Analysis of 259 bottles from 19 locations in nine countries across 11 different brands found an average of 325 plastic particles for every litre of water being sold.
Continue reading...If business leaders want to regain our trust, they must act upon climate risk | Ian Dunlop
Empty rhetoric from corporates is not enough as climate change is accelerating far faster than expected
Business leaders seem astonished that community trust in their activities is at an all-time low, trending toward the bottom of the barrel inhabited by politicians. To the corporate leader dedicated to the capitalist, market economy success story of the last 50 years, that attitude is no doubt incomprehensible and downright ungrateful.
Related: Arctic warming: scientists alarmed by 'crazy' temperature rises
Continue reading...Death by a thousand cuts: the familiar patterns behind Australia's land-clearing crisis
The land-clearing crisis has been hastened by individual decisions, but it’s supported by a network of power brokers, lawmakers and enforcement agencies
The broadscale denuding of the unique Australian landscape is the result of thousands of landholders making a tapestry of individual decisions.
Over the past few years, millions of hectares of land has been cleared of native vegetation, exacerbating climate change, the decline of threatened species and the health of the Great Barrier Reef.
Continue reading...Biofuels can help solve climate change, especially with a carbon tax | John Abraham
We’re not yet optimizing biofuel production for both economic and environmental factors
Facing the reality of human-caused warming, we now look for ways to reduce the problem so that future generations will not inherit a disaster. So, what can we do now to help the future?
The easiest answer is to use energy more wisely and quit wasting our precious resources. Second, we can increase our use of clean energy, particularly wind and solar power. These are great starts but we will still need some liquid fuels and for those, we can make decisions about the best fuels for the environment. There has been extensive conversation recently about biofuels and how they may help solve the climate problem.
Continue reading...Australia's kerbside recycling system in crisis following China ban
Recycling industry in Victoria and NSW on verge of collapse, Senate inquiry told
Australia’s kerbside recycling systems are at risk of collapse, a Senate inquiry has heard. China’s ban on importation of recyclable rubbish has left councils and state governments in Victoria and New South Wales scrambling to find space to stockpile growing mounds of waste.
An estimated half of Australia’s recyclable waste was going to China before the ban, the hearing was told, although the precise share of waste exported was not known.
Continue reading...Toast bread straight from the freezer to avoid waste, campaign urges
UK households throw away more than 25m slices of bread each day, says anti-food waste campaign
Around 25m slices of bread are thrown away every day in the UK – more than a million an hour – because people do not get around to using it in time and worry it is stale.
Now a new campaign from the anti-waste charity Love Food Hate Waste is urging consumers to freeze bread and toast it straight from the freezer, and to consider eating toast as a snack at any time of day.
Continue reading...Country diary: wild garlic makes the greenwood greener
Wenlock Edge, Shropshire: this is mythologised woodland, a secular sacred place, a hunting ground and a sanctuary
Sunlight pools on thousands of wild garlic leaves on the bank of an abandoned railway cutting. Trees stand in companionable silence, the breath between them is slight. Days ago, slender ash trunks rattled like yacht masts in a marina, hawthorns hissed in the east wind, great oaks and steeple limes soughed in deep snowy murmurs. Much of the storm wreckage has been cleared from the path; it is now a gallery full of early birdsong and light falling in patches as if from high windows.
Yesterday a blackbird repeated a one … two-three … four syllable phrase of song; today it is elaborated by bright description and excited story. Shakespeare wrote in As You Like It about the bird under the greenwood tree singing “come hither” with no enemy but “winter and rough weather”.
Continue reading...Mummy's boys: ibises all wrapped up as presents for the gods
They might be disparaged as bin chickens now but in ancient Egypt they were revered
In Australia they’re reviled as bin chickens. But in ancient Egypt, ibises were revered and offered as gifts to the gods.
Two mummified ibises have given researchers at the University of Sydney a riveting insight into their ancient appeal.
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