The Guardian
I wrote about farmers' suicides – and the reaction has been overwhelming
After the Guardian and EHRP published a piece about the record number of farmers who are killing themselves, there were hundreds of responses
On 6 December, The Guardian and EHRP published our piece Why are America’s farmers killing themselves in record numbers? We hoped for a reaction, but the feedback we received was beyond any expectations we might have had.
Today when I spoke with farm psychologist Dr Mike Rosmann, who featured heavily in the piece, he was wading through a slew of new messages and responding to an email from a farmer in Europe. Since the story was published, Rosmann says “the faucet has turned on”. He has received hundreds of comments and requests, online and by phone, many of which he says are from farmers reaching out for support.
Continue reading...Country diary: Silence, a mine with a vein of secrets and rowdy tales
Great Hucklow, Derbyshire At the derelict mine all is not quiet as the sound of birds cuts through the muffling snow and the ruins speak of a riotous noisy past
The broad track down to Silence Mine was muffled with snow, the more slender boughs of its modest avenue bowed under inches of it, sporadic puffs of wind pushing drifts into the air. Perched halfway up Hucklow Edge, among the ruined mine structures, I could look across the broad, walled pastures above Foolow, dazzling in the bright sunshine, the sky a milky blue, a creamy knot of sheep standing to attention in a distant field.
Sunlight pierced a thick stand of hawthorn just behind me, the haws blood-red against the brilliant white. Just below, the choked pit shaft, as so often in Derbyshire, had been plugged with an ash, the snow around it dotted with rabbit prints.
Continue reading...The 2017 comedy wildlife photography awards
Out of 3,500 entries from across the world, this year’s funny winners include a laughing dormouse, a shocked seal, and bears caught in the act
Continue reading...Plans for major nuclear power station in Wales win green light
Office for Nuclear Regulation approves design for new reactor at Horizon Nuclear Power’s plant at Wylfa, Anglesey
Plans for a major new nuclear power station in Wales have taken a crucial step forward as UK regulators approved the project.
The Office for Nuclear Regulation gave the green light on Thursday for the Japanese reactor design for Horizon Nuclear Power’s plant at Wylfa, marking the end of a five-year regulatory process.
Continue reading...EU must not burn the world's forests for 'renewable' energy
A flaw in Europe’s clean energy plan allows fuel from felled trees to qualify as renewable energy when in fact this would accelerate climate change and devastate forests
The European Union is moving to enact a directive to double Europe’s current renewable energy by 2030. This is admirable, but a critical flaw in the present version would accelerate climate change, allowing countries, power plants and factories to claim that cutting down trees and burning them for energy fully qualifies as renewable energy.
Even a small part of Europe’s energy requires a large quantity of trees and to avoid profound harm to the climate and forests worldwide the European council and parliament must fix this flaw.
Continue reading...Research shows that certain facts can still change conservatives’ minds | Dana Nuccitelli
But it’s political corruption, not public opinion that’s blocking American climate policy
There’s a debate between social scientists about whether climate change facts can change peoples’ minds or just polarize them further. For example, conservatives who are more scientifically literate are less worried about global warming. In essence, education arms them with the tools to more easily reject evidence and information that conflicts with their ideological beliefs. This has been called the “smart idiot” effect and it isn’t limited to climate change; it’s also something we’re seeing with the Republican tax plan.
However, other research has shown that conservatives with higher climate-specific knowledge are more likely to accept climate change – a result that holds in many different countries. For example, when people understand how the greenhouse effect works, across the political spectrum they’re more likely to accept human-caused global warming.
Continue reading...'Some don’t have bodies to bury’: My journey back to Dominica after the hurricane - video
This year the Caribbean experienced its most destructive hurricane season in decades. While large countries dominated the headlines, the small island nation of Dominica suffered the worst devastation it has ever seen. Josh Toussaint-Strauss visits his family in the country and asks, with next year forecast to be worse, how Dominicans see their future
Continue reading...Living alongside elephants: A Study of Human and Animal Habitats – in pictures
A new book commissioned by David Attenborough’s charity, The World Land Trust, documents life on the small and important elephant corridor which allows the animals to cross safely between ranges in Kerala, India
Fueling dissent: how the oil industry set out to undercut clean air
After casting doubt on climate change for decades, skeptic consultants have turned their attention to air pollution
On sunny days, when his classmates run out to play, Gabriel Rosales heads to the school nurse for a dose of Albuterol.
The fine mist opens his airways, relaxing the muscles in his chest. Without it, recess could leave the nine-year-old gasping for breath. He gets a second dose at the end of the day before heading home from St John Bosco Elementary School, in San Antonio, Texas.
Continue reading...Size does matter: wine glasses are seven times larger than they used to be
In the 1700s the average-sized wine glass could hold just 66ml of the tipple. Today it’s not unusual to be handed a glass that holds almost half a litre
Our Georgian and Victorian ancestors may have enjoyed a Christmas tipple but – judging by the size of the glasses they used – they probably drank less wine than we do today.
Scientists at the University of Cambridge have found that the capacity of wine glasses has ballooned nearly seven-fold over the past 300 years, rising most sharply in the last two decades in line with a surge in wine consumption.
Continue reading...‘A different dimension of loss’: inside the great insect die-off
Scientists have identified 2 million species of living things. No one knows how many more are out there, and tens of thousands may be vanishing before we have even had a chance to encounter them. By Jacob Mikanowski
The Earth is ridiculously, burstingly full of life. Four billion years after the appearance of the first microbes, 400m years after the emergence of the first life on land, 200,000 years after humans arrived on this planet, 5,000 years (give or take) after God bid Noah to gather to himself two of every creeping thing, and 200 years after we started to systematically categorise all the world’s living things, still, new species are being discovered by the hundreds and thousands.
In the world of the systematic taxonomists – those scientists charged with documenting this ever-growing onrush of biological profligacy – the first week of November 2017 looked like any other. Which is to say, it was extraordinary. It began with 95 new types of beetle from Madagascar. But this was only the beginning. As the week progressed, it brought forth seven new varieties of micromoth from across South America, 10 minuscule spiders from Ecuador, and seven South African recluse spiders, all of them poisonous. A cave-loving crustacean from Brazil. Seven types of subterranean earwig. Four Chinese cockroaches. A nocturnal jellyfish from Japan. A blue-eyed damselfly from Cambodia. Thirteen bristle worms from the bottom of the ocean – some bulbous, some hairy, all hideous. Eight North American mites pulled from the feathers of Georgia roadkill. Three black corals from Bermuda. One Andean frog, whose bright orange eyes reminded its discoverers of the Incan sun god Inti.
Continue reading...Country diary: mistletoe decorates a lime with its pearly berries
Sandy, Bedfordshire Up in the crown of the tree, a mistle thrush gave a rattling call, as if exerting its planter’s rights
Under the unkind umbrella of a spreading oak, a stunted horse chestnut tree had received a white feather. Dropped from a dove, it had landed on a big brown bud as sticky as a toffee apple. The winter elements had then set to work, soaking and battering the kiss-curl of down into limpness, laying it out in the bud’s protective goo and soiling it with dust, seeds and shards of leaves. But still the feather refused to dim its light.
This tree had caught not one falling star but two. I spotted another white feather at waist height, glued fast to another terminal bud. The chances of one feather snagging must have been small. The chances of two…
Continue reading...How to feed the world while curbing our appetite for destruction | Letters
Although I strongly agree with and appreciate George Monbiot’s efforts to shed light on the destructive nature of industrialised farming and its effects on animals and environment (We can’t go on eating like this, 11 December), I do not see the wisdom of tarring the entire farming community with the same brush.
Small family farms, where the profits are just enough to sustain the running of the farm, actually replenish the environment and provide for local communities. A non-slaughter farm is humane, realistic and beneficial all around. We need farmers. There is enough food for everyone if everyone takes only their fair share and stops killing and eating the animals.
Continue reading...Tesco faces legal threat over marketing its food with' fake farm' names
Charity accuses UK supermarkets of misleading customers with fake farm branding and claims Tesco is damaging the reputation of a real farm with the same name
Major UK supermarkets including Tesco, Aldi, Asda and Lidl are being urged to stop using controversial “fake farm” branding on own-brand meat products, with a food charity claiming they are misleading shoppers.
The Feedback charity is backing the owner of a genuine farm called Woodside Farm – a name Tesco has also used on its value pork range since 2016 – and is threatening legal proceedings if the retail giant does not drop the name Woodside Farms.
Scottish fishermen warn of 'hardline' EU stance over quotas
Scottish Fishermen’s Federation says this year’s common fisheries policy deal reveals ‘simmering resentment’ of EU member states due to Brexit
Scottish fishermen have raised concerns that the EU is adopting a hardline stance over quotas as a prelude to Brexit negotiations.
Annual negotiations over fishing quotas – expected to be the penultimate talks the UK participates in before leaving the EU – were concluded in Brussels early on Wednesday.
Continue reading...The US is penny wise and pound foolish on the climate | John Abraham
As America is battered by climate-intensified weather disasters, Republican politicians are trying to slash climate research funding
The United States is great in many respects. But we certainly aren’t perfect; we’ve made some pretty silly choices. One of the dumb choices politicians in the United States want to make is to defund climate science so we wont be able to prepare for increased disasters in the future. We can see how shortsighted this in when compared alongside with the costs of disasters.
Just think about the respective magnitudes. Estimates put the costs of the three big 2017 hurricanes (Harvey, Irma, and Maria) at approximately $200 billion. It is somewhat challenging to estimate the actual cost because not only is there rebuilding that must occur, but there are also lingering damages from loss of power, dislocation of people, and other long-lasting factors. Some reports estimate that the damage may end up being as high as $300 billion – a staggering amount.
Continue reading...English rivers polluted by powerful insecticides, first tests reveal
Neonicotinoids, banned on flowering crops, were found in nearly all rivers tested, increasing concerns over their impact on fish and birds
Rivers in England are contaminated with powerful insecticides, new testing has revealed, increasing concerns over the impact of the toxic chemicals on fish and birds.
Neonicotinoids were banned from use on flowering crops in the European Union in 2013 due to the harm they cause to bees and other vital pollinators. Following even more evidence of harm, an EU vote to extend the ban to all outdoor uses is expected soon.
Continue reading...Nicholas Hughes's ethereal landscapes – in pictures
Nowhere Far, the first monograph by Nicholas Hughes, has been 15 years in the making and spans six separate series of abstract and ethereal landscapes. Hughes’s work is concerned with man’s relationship to the environment, examining the space between the world people inhabit and that which nature claims as its own
- Nowhere Far by Nicholas Hughes is published by GOST Books
Quarter of Christmas jumpers were worn once and discarded last year
Charity urges people to rewear last year’s jumper to reduce the waste impact of the throwaway festive fashion
One in four Christmas jumpers bought last year was thrown away or is unlikely to be worn again, according to new research which reveals that most novelty sweaters will only ever be worn once.
Emblazoned with flashing lights or more tasteful alpine motifs, the festive apparel is so popular that about £220m will be spent on them in the run up to Christmas this year.
Continue reading...Country diary: snow changes everything the other side of the doorstep
Wenlock Edge, Shropshire Suddenly the familiar had been enchanted, even the bull and the blackbird in the blizzard
Black-white-black-white: the bull watches the bird through the snow. This is the first flurry for years, long enough to have forgotten how snow changes everything the other side of the doorstep. It began with the supermoon, a silver florin in a halo of limelight. Then came Storm Caroline – “good times never seemed so good,” sang Neil Diamond – and although not such good times elsewhere, it was easy going here.
Weather presenters spread long fingers over maps and warned that the departing storm would pull down Arctic air, leading to snow at low levels. No one warned the dogs, they felt the excitement of a world changed around them, a duty to redraw their scent maps, a camaraderie with humans daft enough to roam abroad in a blizzard.
Continue reading...