The Guardian
UK frackers are running out of time
Binding carbon commitments and the falling cost of renewables could prove a perfect storm for investors
The UK’s shale gas industry is in a race against time to establish itself before climate change regulations shut it down. As its stands, the frackers are off the pace.
With no wells yet tested for gas flow, the industry does not yet know if large-scale production is possible or what the cost of the gas will be, and it won’t know until 2020 at best. Protests and planning problems have delayed exploration, but the real difficulty is the UK’s legally binding carbon targets.
Continue reading...Fracking to begin in earnest in 2018 after tough year for industry
Firms leading UK push for shale gas say ‘we will see results next year’ after 12 months of opposition, protests and a ban in Scotland
British shale gas companies have said domestic fracking will finally begin in earnest in 2018, after another year passed without serious progress amid strong opposition.
Industry figures said next year would be crucial for the sector, as companies start the process of hydraulic fracturing to extract gas trapped underground in shale rock.
Continue reading...Electric and plug-in hybrid cars whiz passed 3m mark worldwide
Rapid growth is due to falling battery costs, government incentives and car makers competing to build new models
The number of fully electric and plug-in hybrid cars on the world’s roads has passed the 3m mark, as manufacturers ramp up their plans for mass production of battery-powered vehicles.
Industry watchers said the milestone was passed in November, with the growth rate indicating that electric car sales are now running at around 1m a year. The rapid growth is being driven by government incentives, manufacturers launching models for a wider mix of drivers and falling battery costs.
When butterflies aplenty hatched on the TV set | Brief letters
George Monbiot’s memory (Our selective blindness is lethal the living world, 20 December) is indeed bittersweet. As a boy I also recall summertime nettlebeds thickly hanging with the black caterpillars of peacocks and small tortoiseshells. We used to gather them and then watch them pupate and hatch on the top of our television set (a somewhat bulkier item in the late 1960s). I don’t recall seeing such butterfly fecundity for more than 40 years.
Mathew Frith
Director of conservation, London Wildlife Trust
• The light here in Kirkcudbright (Letters, 16 December) is also particularly treasured by artists (viz Hornel and the Glasgow Boys). Many of our beaches up here comprise millions of sea shell shards – scallop and cockle in particular – which make the coast glow on a beautiful sunny day.
Keith Langton
Kirkcudbright, Dumfries and Galloway
Country diary 1917: forest in the grip of a black frost
28 December 1917 In the sombre foliage of the forest firs we heard the short, high-pitched notes of the goldcrest, and saw two or three of the tiny birds hunting for insects
Iron-hard roads rang beneath our feet and cat-ice between the ruts scrunched and crackled; a black frost had the forest in its grip. Under the firs was a litter of stripped cones and scattered flakes; the squirrels, in spite of the frost, had been busy, and over and over again we disturbed them from their hunt amongst the fallen needles and sent them scurrying up the straight boles. It was in the sombre foliage of these forest firs that we heard the short, high-pitched notes of the goldcrest, and saw two or three of the tiny birds hunting for insects – hibernating insects too insignificant for larger birds to worry with.
Related: Walking in the winter woods: Country diary 100 years ago
Continue reading...The eco guide to the Christmas walk
Going out for a breather after the big meal is a tradition. But now you have to think about the quality of the air you’re taking in
The post-lunch Christmas walk is a family tradition in many households. What’s not to like? You get to walk off one of the biggest meals of the year. Young or old, most members of the family can manage a gentle stroll and you get some fresh air in your lungs.
But how fresh is that air? A new study by British researchers recently published in the Lancet highlights the fact that older members of the family need to be much more choosy about where they take their exercise.
Continue reading...How Sea Shepherd lost battle against Japan’s whale hunters in Antarctic
A fleet of Japanese ships is currently hunting minke whales in the Southern Ocean. It is a politically incendiary practice: the waters around Antarctica were long ago declared a whale sanctuary, but the designation has not halted Japan’s whalers, who are continuing a tradition of catching whales “for scientific research” in the region.
In the past, conservation groups such as Sea Shepherd have mounted campaigns of harassment and successfully blocked Japan’s ships from killing whales. But not this year. Despite previous successes, Sea Shepherd says it can no longer frustrate Japan’s whalers because their boats now carry hardware supplied from military sources, making the fleet highly elusive and almost impossible to track. As a result the whalers are – for the first time – being given a free run to kill minke in the Southern Ocean.
Continue reading...Country diary: 'Demanding Ladies' blossom in a Victorian time warp
Hawkhurst, Kent One of Britain’s largest collections of Victorian glasshouses is being restored thanks to the fond memories of a wartime evacuee
Just outside Hawkhurst, in the Kentish Weald, there’s a walled garden so quintessentially Victorian that stepping inside feels like time-travelling. Rustic brickwork glows in the winter sun; in bright corners the skeletal arms of buddleia seem to beckon the ghosts of bees; and everywhere you look the light is reflected by shimmering glass.
There are 13 crumbling, deeply atmospheric glasshouses – the “Demanding Ladies” – most of them more than 140 years old. There’s a shaded fern house, a long, leaning peach case, a sunken glass corridor for melons and pineapples, a pelargonium house, a carnation house, a hot house with great vats that once steamed with heated water.
Continue reading...Tesco pledges to end edible food waste by March 2018
Supermarket announces plans to donate surplus stock to local charities, and urges other chains to follow suit
Tesco is to become the only UK retailer to no longer waste food fit for human consumption.
The company’s chief executive, Dave Lewis, has urged other supermarket chains to follow Tesco’s lead and adopt the changes that it will implement by March 2018.
Continue reading...New lab-bred super corals could help avert global reef wipeout
Pioneering research on cross-species coral hybrids, inoculations with protective bacteria and even genetic engineering could provide a lifeline for the ‘rainforests of the oceans’
New super corals bred by scientists to resist global warming could be tested on the Great Barrier Reef within a year as part of a global research effort to accelerate evolution and save the “rainforests of the seas” from extinction.
Researchers are getting promising early results from cross-breeding different species of reef-building corals, rapidly developing new strains of the symbiotic algae that corals rely on and testing inoculations of protective bacteria. They are also mapping out the genomes of the algae to assess the potential for genetic engineering.
Continue reading...The week in wildlife - in pictures
A mountain hare in the snow, a Christmas beetle, and the pre-speech toddler who has befriended a pack of wild monkeys all feature in this week’s pick of images from the natural world
Continue reading...Failing our forests: we’ve lost enough trees to cover Spain in 2 years
Fire. Oil palm. Cattle. Soy. Rubber. Wood. New data from Global Forest Watch shows that forest destruction is on the rise globally, in spite of a slate of pledges and commitments.
Two years ago the world signed the Paris Agreement to combat climate change. It included specific pledges to “conserve and enhance” the world’s forests in order to combat rising temperatures. But in the last two years – 2015 and 2016 – we’ve lost enough trees to cover 493,716 square kilometres, according to satellite data recently released by Global Forest Watch (GFW). This is nearly equal to the entirety of Spain – or about four Englands.
Currently, deforestation accounts for around 10-15% of annual global carbon emissions. Even as combating deforestation has long been seen as one of the cheapest ways to tackle global warming, GFW’s data shows just how far we have to go.
New highways in remote Amazon risk ‘ethnocide’, say Peruvians
Indigenous federations, state entities and congresspeople speak out against proposed law promoting road construction
Indigenous federations and other Peruvians have responded fiercely to a proposed law promoting the construction of highways in some of the remotest parts of the Peruvian Amazon near the border with Brazil. A series of “protected natural areas”, including four national parks, and five reserves for indigenous peoples living in “isolation” could ultimately be impacted.
Local, regional and national federations - together with NGOs, relevant state entities and congresspeople - have spoken out against or expressed concern about the proposed law. The main claims: it poses serious threats to the forests, biodiversity and indigenous peoples living in “isolation” and “initial contact”, and it contravenes Peruvian and international laws, trade agreements with the US and European Union, Peru’s international climate change commitments, and recommendations by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
Continue reading...UN poised to move ahead with landmark treaty to protect high seas
Waters outside national boundaries are currently unregulated, devastated by overfishing and pollution. 140 countries back the motion to establish a treaty
The world’s oceans are set for a long overdue boost in the coming days as the United Nations votes for the first time on a planned treaty to protect and regulate the high seas.
The waters outside national maritime boundaries – which cover half of the planet’s surface – are currently a free-for-all that has led to devastating overfishing and pollution.
Continue reading...Make supermarkets and drinks firms pay for plastic recycling, say MPs
Environmental audit committee recommends adoption of ‘polluter pays’ principle, as well as backing deposit return scheme and public water fountains
Supermarkets, retailers and drinks companies should be forced to pay significantly more towards the recycling of the plastic packaging they sell, an influential committee of MPs has said.
Members of the environmental audit committee called for a societal change in the UK to reduce the 7.7bn plastic water bottles used each year, and embed a culture of carrying reusable containers which are refilled at public water fountains and restaurants, cafes, sports centres and fast food outlets.
Continue reading...Country diary: in Richard I's day this field was a hi-tech hub
Rockingham Forest, Northamptonshire Grass-covered earthworks are all that remain of an abbey that built one of England’s first windmills
Patches of snow persist in the most sheltered spots alongside Harpers Brook, the pasture dense with a complexity of mounds and earthworks that hints at a significant history. The sloping field by the grey limestone edifices of Pipewell Hall is crowned with a variety of trees, some fairly ancient, and a medley of a dozen horses and ponies come over to say hello; each in turn blowing gusts of warm breath on to the back of my hand, some lingering to gently nuzzle or allow a brief stroke.
A Cistercian community, St Mary de Divisis Abbey, was established here in 1143. The monastery and cloisters were surrounded by many facilities – an infirmary, a bakery, a granary, a brewhouse, a quarry, a cemetery, a watermill, carp ponds and refuse pits. A little further to the west the community built one of the first English windmills.
Continue reading...Devastating climate change could lead to 1m migrants a year entering EU by 2100
Researchers plotted temperature rises against the number of asylum applications and are predicting that as the southern hemisphere heats up the number of people migrating to the EU each year will triple
Climate change will drive a huge increase in the number of migrants seeking asylum in Europe if current trends continue, according to a new study.
The number of migrants attempting to settle in Europe each year will triple by the end of the century based on current climate trends alone, independent of other political and economic factors, according to the research. Even if efforts to curb global warming are successful, the number of applications for asylum could rise by a quarter, the authors predict.
Continue reading...Nearly 20,000 badgers culled in attempt to reduce bovine TB
Almost twice as many badgers have been killed this autumn, after massive expansion of the cull zones
Nearly 20,000 badgers were culled this autumn as part of the government’s attempt to reduce bovine TB in cattle, in what critics called the largest destruction of a protected species in living memory.
The 19,274 dead badgers is almost twice as many as last year after 11 new cull zones were added to a swath of the West Country worst-hit by bovine TB. While some badgers were trapped before being shot, the majority – 11,638 badgers – were killed by free shooting, a method judged inhumane by the British Veterinary Association.
Continue reading...Diverting aid to fund waste collection will save lives and clean the ocean, says charity
UK government should make 100-fold increase in the amount of aid spent on dealing with plastic waste, says Tearfund
The British government should divert hundreds of millions of pounds from its aid budget to help developing countries clear up their waste and reduce marine plastic pollution, a charity has said.
The development charity Tearfund is in talks with senior government figures, and hopes to persuade ministers to increase the spending on waste and rubbish collection in the developing world from a few million pounds to hundreds of millions a year.
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