The Guardian
No cause for rejoicing in the countryside | Letters
Your correspondent June Lewis (Letters, 29 December), having referred to Country diary, says that the country – by which I think she means the countryside and nature – is “carrying on happily”. While the natural world does indeed carry on functioning regardless of politics (sometimes almost in spite of it), that world of nature struggles more than ever to maintain diversity of species with loss of habitat, environmental pollution, pesticides, climate change and human thoughtlessness. I mention just a few casualties: hedgehogs, butterflies, meadow flowers and some common birds, the numbers of all of which have declined over the last few generations in particular. Not a cause for rejoicing.
Margaret Porter
Gillingham, Dorset
• John Gilbey may not be right about the new nesting box location being more desirable (Country diary, Comins Coch, Ceredigion 30 December). Robins appear to like dry shelter regardless of nesting boxes. On acquiring an unoccupied house with a detached garage with a broken window, I wondered how many times generations of robins might have been nesting in an old empty paint tin on a shelf. All fledglings got away safely.
Andrew Dean
Exeter, Devon
Tips and inspiration for the new year, new you cyclist
If you’re planning to cycle to work as part of a new year’s health kick here’s our tips to make sure you enjoy the ride rather than endure it
Come the new year, it’s traditional for people to promise themselves that the next 12 months will be marked by a health kick, and this sometimes end up as a pledge to cycle to and from work.
In bike-unfriendly Britain, even if your commute is short enough, this can sometimes be a tricky prospect. But if it works out, the benefits – to your health, to your wallet, to your general sense of wellbeing – can be astonishing.
Continue reading...Wildlife on your doorstep: share your January photos
As we begin 2018 we’d like to see your photos of the wildlife you’ve discovered where you live
What sort of wildlife will we all discover on our doorsteps this month? We’d like to see your photos of the January wildlife near you, whether you’re a novice spotter or have been out and about searching for wildlife for years.
Share your photos and videos with us and we’ll feature our favourites on the Guardian site. We also occasionally print readers’ best images in the Guardian newspaper and will let you know if your image should feature.
First polar bear cub born in the UK for 25 years at Scottish park
Staff at Highland Wildlife Park in Scotland confirm the birth to mother Victoria but say the first three months of life for the new-born cub are perilous
The first polar bear cub to be born in Britain for 25 years is being cared for in a private den by its mother, Victoria, at the Highland Wildlife Park in Scotland.
Staff at the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS) park confirmed the birth after hearing distinct high-pitched sounds from Victoria’s maternity unit, which remains closed to visitors to ensure privacy.
Continue reading...Bamboo worlds: the beauty of Chinese aquaculture – in pictures
In Coastal Geometries, architect and photographer Tugo Cheng conjures minimalist compositions from the fishing nets and bamboo poles on the coast of Fujian. It is a world that’s vanishing, since this vital culture is threatened by rapid development
Continue reading...Wildflower planting on farms boosts birds, from skylarks to starlings
New research shows wildlife-friendly farming can quickly help bird populations bounce back, but large-scale rollout will be needed to reverse long-term declines
Planting wildflowers and protecting nests on farms enables birds, from skylarks to starlings, to bounce back rapidly from long-term declines, new research shows.
Intensive agriculture has led to overall farmland bird numbers in the UK plunging by more than 50% since 1970 and the fall has not stopped yet, with the latest figures showing a 9% drop from 2010 to 2015.
Continue reading...Country diary: an old railway sleeper has become a dreaming post
Wenlock Edge, Shropshire The weathered waymark, like a fragment of a wooden henge, is an archive of local history
At the top of steps into the railway cutting stands a wooden post. It is old and weathered and, when sunlight through trees catches it, a beautiful greenfinch blush of moss and algae.
Continue reading...Pret a Manger doubles discount for bringing reusable coffee cups
Chain will now knock 50p off prices in bid to help change customers’ habits, with the UK discarding an estimated 2.5bn coffee cups every year
Customers who bring reusable cups to Pret a Manger will be given a 50p discount on hot drinks after the company introduced the measure and said it was hoping to change people’s habits and reduce waste.
The sandwich chain has been offering 25p discounts to customers using reusable cups since 2017, alongside Costa and Starbucks. CEO Clive Schlee said he hoped that doubling the discount would make a difference, following other initiatives to reduce waste such as not using plastic cup stoppers in inner city Pret shops.
Continue reading...Rubbish already building up at UK recycling plants due to China import ban
Plastic that would have been imported to China will cause chaos for councils as it mounts up, warn industry experts
A ban on imports of millions of tonnes of plastic waste by the Chinese government is already causing a build up of rubbish at recycling plants around the UK and will bring chaos for councils in the weeks ahead, according to industry experts.
Simon Ellin, chief executive of the UK Recycling Association, said his members had already seen some lower grade plastics piling up at their yards and warned urgent action was needed.
Continue reading...Trump plan to shrink ocean monuments threatens vital ecosystems, experts warn
Ryan Zinke has recommended three major marine monuments be reduced to allow greater commercial fishing, prompting anguish from environmental groups
The Trump administration’s plan to shrink four land-based national monuments has provoked howls of anguish from environmental groups, Native American tribes and some businesses, such as the outdoors company Patagonia.
Related: In America and beyond, the spirit behind public lands is at risk | Hansjörg Wyss
Continue reading...2017 was the hottest year on record without an El Niño, thanks to global warming | Dana Nuccitelli
Climate scientists predicted the rapid rise in global surface temperatures that we’re now seeing
2017 was the second-hottest year on record according to Nasa data, and was the hottest year without the short-term warming influence of an El Niño event:
Continue reading...Country diary: a visual rhyme of craftsmanship and nature
Grassington, Upper Wharfedale The stark geometry of the bone-white boundary walls complements the outcrops and escarpments around Grass Wood
The weakest of the year’s sunlight falls on the barn-studded latticework of dry stone walls just outside Grassington. I stop to admire the skill they must have required: the Great Scar Limestone that underlies much of Upper Wharfedale comes from the fields in big, irregular chunks, too dense for a chipping hammer, and the resulting walls are completed puzzles that testify to the creativity of the builder.
Continue reading...Dozens of snake eggs found in Australian school sandpit
Wildlife rescuers retrieve 43 eggs thought to be from of one of the world’s most poisonous snakes, the eastern brown
Students at a school on the New South Wales mid-north coast have learned a valuable lesson: sandpits make great snake nests.
Wildlife rescuers were shocked when a call to remove about a dozen eggs from a sandpit at a school near the coastal town of Laurieton, 350km north of Sydney, became rather more dramatic.
Continue reading...On its hundredth birthday in 1959, Edward Teller warned the oil industry about global warming | Benjamin Franta
Somebody cut the cake – new documents reveal that American oil writ large was warned of global warming at its 100th birthday party.
It was a typical November day in New York City. The year: 1959. Robert Dunlop, 50 years old and photographed later as clean-shaven, hair carefully parted, his earnest face donning horn-rimmed glasses, passed under the Ionian columns of Columbia University’s iconic Low Library. He was a guest of honor for a grand occasion: the centennial of the American oil industry.
Over 300 government officials, economists, historians, scientists, and industry executives were present for the Energy and Man symposium – organized by the American Petroleum Institute and the Columbia Graduate School of Business – and Dunlop was to address the entire congregation on the “prime mover” of the last century – energy – and its major source: oil. As President of the Sun Oil Company, he new the business well, and as a director of the American Petroleum Institute – the industry’s largest and oldest trade association in the land of Uncle Sam – he was responsible for representing the interests of all those many oilmen gathered around him.
Continue reading...London air pollution live data – where will be first to break legal limits in 2018?
Toxic NO2 pollution affects most of urban areas of the UK, but London is worst hit. View live data from the capital to see which site is the first to break legal limits in 2018
In January 2017, Brixton Road in south London broke its annual legal limit for toxic nitrogen dioxide (NO2) in less than a fortnight, according to the final calibrated data. In 2016, Putney High Street was the first, in less than seven days.
The rapid breaching of the limits is a dramatic illustration of the illegal air pollution affecting most urban areas in the UK, which will see the government being sued in the high court for a third time early in 2018. High NO2 levels are estimated to cause about 23,500 early deaths a year.
From stools to fuels: the street lamp that runs on dog do
Turning turds into power is not new but most of this energy still goes to waste. A host of innovative projects aim to maximise poo’s full potential
A long winding road climbs into a gathering dusk, coming to an abrupt dead end in front of a house. Here, a solitary flickering flame casts out a warm glow, illuminating the nearby ridge line of the Malvern Hills.
Below the light sits a mysterious green contraption resembling a cross between a giant washing machine and a weather station. This is the UK’s first dog poo-powered street lamp, and it is generating light in more ways than one.
Country diary: dancing and diving, a dipper braves the ice-cold river
Black Banks Plantation, Weardale, County Durham Maintenance of insulating plumage is vital for a bird whose survival depends on feeding underwater
It was a morning of brittle beauty, the best kind of winter day. Last night’s magical transformation remained intact; rusty-brown bracken fronds fringed with frost crystals and ice-encrusted leaves that crunched underfoot. No hint of a thaw yet; the low elevation of the sun had left this side of the riverbank in deep shadow. The cold air stung our cheeks.
In still pools beside the river, the 6mm-thick ice must have frozen gradually overnight, from the edges inwards as the water level dropped, creating concentric oval patterns with elegant art nouveau flourishes around their margins. In a few places, ice sheets remained suspended between the trunks of alders, creaking and groaning when the wind disturbed their branches.
Continue reading...Vehicles are now America's biggest CO2 source but EPA is tearing up regulations
Transport overtook power generation for climate-warming emissions in 2017 but the Trump administration is reversing curbs on auto industry pollution
Some of the most common avatars of climate change – hulking power stations and billowing smokestacks – may need a slight update. For the first time in more than 40 years, the largest source of greenhouse gas pollution in the US isn’t electricity production but transport – cars, trucks, planes, trains and shipping.
Related: Fightback begins over Trump's 'illegal and irresponsible' clean power repeal
Continue reading...Country diary 1918: birds stirred by the promise of better times
1 January 1918 It was from a food-hunting flock of tits, vigorously working from tree to tree, that a great tit detached itself with harsh cries of alarm
The birds are not sentimental; the death of the old year, the passing of time, does not worry them. They know that winter is a strenuous season, for food is hard to find and every beakful means a search; perhaps they feel at times that the days are lengthening and are stirred by the promise of better times, but beyond that the close of one year and the opening of the next have no meaning. It was from a food-hunting flock of tits, vigorously working from tree to tree, that a great tit detached itself with harsh cries of alarm. It came down from the upper twigs, dropping from bough to bough, until, still scolding, it was just above my head, and there, jerking its body from side to side, it made emphatic remarks in tit language. Mr. Hudson, in Birds and Man, tells how some Surrey goldcrests mobbed him because, he believed they mistook his tweed cap for a coiled-up cat. If this tit made a similar mistake it was surely short-sighted; I am rather inclined to the view that it had, even so early, felt the first vernal instincts that move the birds to seek mates and hunt for suitable nesting sites, and which later cause them to look upon intruders in the woods as possible enemies.
Related: Goldcrest combs the gorse for slim pickings
Continue reading...The eco guide to New Year recycling
Now that China and Hong Kong won’t take our rubbish, it’s time to get real
Right now you may well be surveying the wreckage of Christmas, all that old wrapping paper. Whereas in previous years I’ve skipped through the issue of post-Christmas waste in an upbeat “how to” guide, this year’s advice might be summed up as “Brace, brace”.
Let me explain. Back in July the Chinese government announced a clampdown on so-called “foreign garbage”. To get slightly more technical, that means bringing in very tight contamination limits on 24 categories of scrap, especially waste paper and plastic. This concerns us, because since 2012 the UK has shipped more than 2.7 million tonnes of plastic scrap to mainland China and Hong Kong. Put simply there is no other market to replace it right now.
Continue reading...