The Guardian
UK must be ready for rise of electric vehicles, says ABB chief
Charging point manufacturer’s CEO warns that UK power grid needs to handle expected 9m electric vehicles by 2030
The UK should speed up preparations for the rise of electric vehicles, according to the chief executive of ABB, the world’s largest supplier of fast-charging points.
Speaking as the Switzerland-based engineering firm became the first official sponsor of the electric street racing series Formula E, Ulrich Spiesshofer predicted a flood of consumer take-up of plug-in cars.
Continue reading...Brexit bill may have broken international environment law, says UN
Exclusive: compliance committee considers complaint alleging government breached Aarhus convention by not consulting public over withdrawal bill
The British government may have breached a major “environmental democracy” law by failing to consult the public when drawing up Brexit legislation.
A UN-backed committee has confirmed it is considering a complaint from Friends of the Earth that the government’s EU withdrawal bill breached the Aarhus convention, which requires public consultation on any new environmental law.
Continue reading...Heat-stressed koalas hosed down in Australia – video
Volunteers from the Help Save the Wildlife and Bushlands in Campbelltown organisation hose down heat stressed koala bears in the searing Australian heat. Temperatures have reached 47C causing exhaustion and dehydration
Continue reading...The 'imminent mini ice age' myth is back, and it's still wrong | Dana Nuccitelli
We can’t accurately predict solar activity, and a quiet solar cycle would have a small impact on Earth’s climate anyway
Roughly every two years we’re treated to headlines repeating the myth that Earth is headed for an imminent “mini ice age.” It happened in 2013, 2015, and again just recently at the tail end of 2017.
This time around, the myth appears to have been sparked by a Sky News interview with Northumbria University mathematics professor Valentina Zharkova. The story was quickly echoed by the Daily Mail, International Business Times, Sputnik News, Metro, Tru News, and others. Zharkova was also behind the ‘mini ice age’ stories in 2015, based on her research predicting that the sun will soon enter a quiet phase.
Continue reading...Wildlife photographer of the year people's choice award - in pictures
The Natural History Museum has chosen 24 of the best images from its Wildlife photographer of the year competition shortlist. Members of the public can vote for their favourite by 5 February 2018.
Country diary: self-sufficient ponies open up the wetlands for wildlife
Waltham Brooks, West Sussex A burst of loud, profane whistles announce the presence of a Cetti’s warbler, darting through the rushes in search of food
The early morning rain has lifted but there is still damp in the air. Konik ponies watch me between their mouthfuls of grass as I make my slow way through the dark, water-logged mud. The small, brown horses – descendants of the wild Tarpans that once roamed Europe – are a hardy, self-sufficient breed, perfectly adapted to grazing wetlands. They are used increasingly by conservation bodies in the UK, as here by the Sussex Wildlife Trust, to control young trees, shrubs and plants that would otherwise grow and dominate habitat like this. The ponies’ grazing clears channels and pools, opens up patches of grass, and creates new opportunities for diverse species of plants, insects, birds and animals to thrive.
Related: Hoof hardy in the snow
Continue reading...Plastic microbeads ban enters force in UK
Manufacturing ban means the tiny beads which harm marine life can no longer be used in cosmetics and personal care products
Plastic microbeads can no longer be used in cosmetics and personal care products in the UK, after a long-promised ban came into effect on Tuesday. The ban initially bars the manufacture of such products and a ban on sales will follow in July.
Thousands of tonnes of plastic microbeads from products such as exfoliating face scrubs and toothpastes wash into the sea every year, where they harm wildlife and can ultimately be eaten by people. The UK government first pledged to ban plastic microbeads in September 2016, following a US ban in 2015.
Continue reading...Higher electricity bills if Snowy 2.0 hydro not built, says Frydenberg
Despite costing up to $4.5bn, the feasibility study for ‘Australia’s biggest battery’ finds it would still be economically viable
Australians would pay more for electricity and have more volatile supply if the Snowy 2.0 pumped hydropower project is not built, Josh Frydenberg has said.
The energy and environment minister has strongly argued for the necessity of the scheme in an opinion piece for the Australian Financial Review, despite the feasibility study revealing that its estimated cost had blown out by more than $2bn to between $3.8bn and $4.5bn.
Continue reading...Energy agency rejects Trump plan to prop up coal and nuclear power plants
The unexpected decision by the Republican-controlled body is a blow to the president’s high-profile mission to revive the struggling US coal industry
An independent energy agency on Monday rejected a Trump administration plan to bolster coal-fired and nuclear power plants with subsidies, dealing a blow to the president’s high-profile mission to revive the struggling coal industry.
The decision by the Republican-controlled Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) was unexpected and comes amid repeated promises by Trump to rejuvenate coal as the nation’s top power source. The industry has been besieged by multiple bankruptcies and a steady loss of market share as natural gas and renewable energy have flourished.
Continue reading...Great Barrier Reef: rising temperatures turning green sea turtles female
‘Complete feminisation’ of northern population is possible in near future, researchers find
Rising temperatures are turning almost all green sea turtles in a Great Barrier Reef population female, new research has found.
The scientific paper warned the skewed ratio could threaten the population’s future.
Continue reading...Confessions of a Deliveroo rider: get fit by delivering fast food
Carlton Reid picks up burgers and pizzas, but he doesn’t eat them - he delivers them. In just a few months he has lost weight and saved cash for the Giro d’Italia
There’s a way to get healthy from fast food: the trick is to deliver it, not eat it. I’m 52, but am now fitter than I was at 22. As a gig-economy food delivery rider I’m getting paid to melt my middle-age spread. I started in November, but have lost 5kg. Although I only do a few evening hours per week, I have already banked enough cash to pay for a trip to see the Giro d’Italia in May.
I get paid £4.25 for every drop, and the faster I pedal, the more drops I can fit in. Students are the mainstay of the food delivery business, and on a good night – when the students are flush – I can pocket £20 an hour. Not bad for time I’d otherwise waste trawling Twitter.
Calls for EU to reinstate ban on 'destructive' electric pulse fishing
Campaigners say it causes unnecessary suffering but those in favour of method say it is less damaging than trawling
Groups representing small-scale fishing fleets across Europe have called on the European Union to reinstate a ban on fishing using electrical pulses, which they say is a destructive method.
However, others have called for the technique to continue, saying it causes less disturbance than methods such as trawling the bottom of the seabed.
Continue reading...Country diary: limestone heath is a piece of ecological magic
Goblin Combe, Somerset This is one of those rare habitats where lime-hating and lime-loving plants suck together from the same earth, roots entangled
There is no doubt when you are on the carboniferous limestone. Crags jut out as if the rock is struggling to release itself from its turfy skin, shedding broken stones. Sheep’s fescue, rockrose, kidney vetch and many more lime-loving species form the distinctive close-knit grassland. The signature of this rock is written all over the hill.
At Goblin Combe we cross the limestone turf, heading for my favourite slope. Melted frost has touched every leaf with diamonds and pin-cushioned the anthills with rainbow spangles. And then – so suddenly – wine-dark mounds of bell heather. Lime-hating heather, among all those lime-lovers!
Continue reading...Country diary 1968: a meeting with the bracken-red fox
8 January 1968 The fox was completely absorbed in its own affairs and very catlike in its stance, it stood motionless and its sharp nose pointed at a tuft of winter-pale grass
KESWICK: The first week of the new year often brings strange weather as if it is undecided as to which season it belongs to and one milder morning lately, with soft clouds resting on the snowy fells, there was a smell of growing things in the air. It was an indefinable smell – not the flowering witch hazel, the swelling daphne, or even the balsam poplar whose buds, though furled, can send out sweetness. It was, rather, the exhalation of the earth itself and a promise of growth to come. There were a few wintry daisies in the grass but they are as scentless as snow.
Related: 21st-century fox: how nature's favourite outsider seduced the suburbs
Continue reading...Pollutionwatch: reducing sulphur emissions saves lives – and forests
We used to worry more about acid rain than about climate change. It took years but the agreements made in the Gothenburg Protocol have made a difference
Today we focus our concern on climate change, but 40 years ago it was acid rain and forest die-back that dominated our air and environment debate. In 1977, a new measurement programme showed that the sulphur landing in Scandinavia was far greater than the countries were producing. Industrial coal burning and westerly winds meant that the UK was Europe’s largest exporter of sulphur air pollution. Moving power generation to the countryside and building tall chimneys had reduced local air pollution but did not prevent sulphur being transported over thousands of kilometres.
This was at the height of the cold war. Warsaw Pact countries offered 30% reductions in their sulphur emissions and watched as the western allies were split. The UK was isolated and Canadian provinces were pitched against upwind industrial states in the US.
Continue reading...Agricultural policy under Michael Gove | Letters
Please don’t use the word “subsidy” for payments to farmers who manage land for biodiversity and the ecosystem services it provides (Report, 3 January). A subsidy is generally considered a temporary assistance and often comes with an undertone that is negative and undeserved. There is now a large body of analysis and evidence to support paying for services that the market cannot supply. We don’t talk about subsidising nurses for health services, or teachers for educational services. So let’s pay for environmental services on a similar basis.
It is good that Michael Gove is supportive of this approach, but there is no need to leave the EU to do it. With strong UK leadership, the common agricultural policy has been adapted for over 20 years to enable governments to pay farmers for environmental services, and to do this under their own locally devised schemes. The resources allocated for this purpose have been decided domestically, and we could have done much more of this had we chosen. Let’s hope Mr Gove now delivers on his rhetoric.
Allan Buckwell
Professor emeritus of agricultural policy, Imperial College, London
Mesmerised by the mole that dug up my garden | Letters
We had a mole a few years ago that made 17 molehills on our back lawn in as many days (Country diary, 4 January). I watched from the kitchen window each morning as the new hill was being excavated, the earth moving with clumps falling away. A blackbird would stand beside it, watching carefully and taking the worms and insects dislodged – fascinating! This was another wild creature to add to our garden list of frogs, grass snakes, lizards, slowworms and so on and we loved having it, though I must confess to trying to catch it by standing over it when the earth was moving one day and grabbing at the soil, without success. How did it move so quickly? Instead of collecting the soil we raked it back into the grass and eventually the mole departed (to the flower beds) and the area returned to its meadow-like state.
Sallie Bedford
Henfield, West Sussex
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Continue reading...Government pledges £5.7m to develop new northern forest
Plan to plant 50m trees along 120-mile stretch of land next to M62 to provide new habitat for wildlife as well as manage flood risk
The government has pledged £5.7m to kickstart the creation of a new northern forest which would stretch from Liverpool to Hull.
The plans, which are being led by the Woodland Trust, include the planting of 50m new trees along a 120-mile stretch of land running next to the M62. The project is expected to cost £500m over 25 years, with the remaining money being raised by charity.
Continue reading...The eco guide to pensions
Vast amounts are paid into Britain’s pensions schemes and, sadly, much of it still goes into supporting fossil fuels
I have great hopes for earth defending activism this year. And one of the most exciting opportunities involves pensions. Huh? OK, pension schemes and auto enrolment do not immediately shout “riveting”, but it is time to follow the money.
The lion’s share of that giant pot flows in the direction of oil and gas companies
Continue reading...Pressure grows for UK to bring in blanket ban on ivory trade
Environmental campaigners believe that public pressure is finally about to force the environment secretary, Michael Gove, to introduce a blanket ban on the commercial trade in ivory in the UK.
A consultation on what form a proposed ban should take has just closed, and the government says it will give its response soon. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which is overseeing the consultation, said there had been “a massive public response to the government’s proposed ban on ivory sales”. More than 60,000 responses were received, half of them coming in the week running up to Christmas, making it one of the biggest consultations in Defra’s history. Of the responses analysed so far, the overwhelming majority support a ban.
Continue reading...