The Guardian
Switch to electric transport will not lead to surge in power demand | Letters
You report that the defence firm Rolls-Royce has been lobbying for government funds to assist it to diversify into building nuclear reactors (Millions on offer to develop small nuclear plants, 4 December). It is arguing that the switch to electric transport will “drive up future demand”.
The National Grid concludes that, provided that vehicle recharging is concentrated into non-peak demand hours, even large-scale electrification of surface transport requires an increase in electricity system capacity by around 15%.
Continue reading...African apiarists know all about healthy bees | Letters
The photograph accompanying your piece (How Liberia’s killer bees are helping to rebuild livelihoods, 4 December) shows a Liberian beekeeper holding curved comb from a top-bar hive, not the oblong combs of the frame hives generally used in the UK. Top-bar hives, traditional in Africa, allow bees to build comb in the shape they wish, and to structure their nest according to their natural instincts. These hives are usually managed without constant intrusive inspections, chemical interventions and sugar feeding.
A significant minority of UK beekeepers have adopted these methods. We find that they keep bees healthier than conventional systems, and our experience is borne out by the work of Cornell University’s eminent Professor Thomas Seeley, among other scientists.
Continue reading...Iter nuclear fusion project reaches key halfway milestone
After a series of set backs the international project is back on track, say scientists, giving tentative hope for a major new source of clean power by 2025
An international project to generate energy from nuclear fusion has reached a key milestone, with half of the infrastructure required now built.
Bernard Bigot, the director-general of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (Iter), the main facility of which is based in southern France, said the completion of half of the project meant the effort was back on track, after a series of difficulties. This would mean that power could be produced from the experimental site from 2025.
Continue reading...Is this the end of the road for Adani’s Australian megamine?
Australian and Chinese banks have turned it down, and analysts say Adani’s failure to secure funding for the Carmichael mine leaves it high and dry
Adani’s operations in Australia appear to be hanging on by a thread, as activists prove effective at undermining the company’s chances of getting the finance it needs.
China seems to have ruled out funding for the mine, which means it’s not just Adani’s proposed Carmichael coalmine that is under threat, but also its existing Abbot Point coal terminal, which sits near Bowen, behind the Great Barrier Reef.
Continue reading...Environmental crusaders risk their lives to save Philippine paradise
A small group of civilian para-enforcers is taking the protection of Palawan’s threatened rainforest from illegal loggers into their own hands
Tata gives hand signals for his men to drop to the rainforest floor as the searing whine of a chainsaw fades, their mission to save a critically endangered piece of paradise in the Philippines suddenly on hold.
Former paramilitary leader Efren “Tata” Balladares has been leading the other flip flop-wearing environmental crusaders up and down the steep mountains of Palawan island for the past 15 hours in the hunt for illegal loggers.
Continue reading...An orangutan stole my camera and took close-up selfies – in pictures
Wildlife photographer Ian Wood has been capturing great apes in the wild for decades, but when a young orangutan discovered his hidden camera on a recent Borneo trip he got some truly unexpected results
One of the challenges of wildlife photography is trying to come up with ways to take images that haven’t been shot before. Through my conservation work with orangutans I’ve had numerous opportunities to photograph these great apes over the last couple of decades, but on a recent annual fundraising trip to Tanjung Puting national park in Borneo I got some unexpected, close-up results.
I had decided to hide a GoPro camera near to where orangutans often appear, hoping to get some close-up wide-angle images of them in the forest. I figured that in the worse case, if an orangutan found my camera it would realise it wasn’t food and discard it.
Continue reading...US government report finds steady and persistent global warming | John Abraham
All of nature’s thermometers indicate a rapid rise in global temperatures.
The US Global Change Research Program recently released a Climate Science Special Report. It is clearly written – an authoritative summary of the science, and easy to understand.
The first main chapter deals with changes to the climate and focuses much attention on global temperatures. When most people think of climate change, they think of the global temperature – specifically the temperature of the air a few meters above the Earth surface. There are other (better) ways to measure climate change such as heat absorbed by the oceans, melting ice, sea level rise, or others. But the iconic measurement most people think of are these air temperatures, shown in the top frame of the figure below.
BMW electric car ad banned over misleading 'clean car' claims
Ruling by advertising watchdog could have knock on effect on other electric car advertising
The car company BMW has been censured by the UK’s advertising watchdog for claiming an electric car equipped with a small petrol engine was “clean” and “zero emissions”, in a ruling that could have a knock-on effect on other electric car advertising.
The advertising was published in the form of a Facebook post that used testimonials from real customers to extol the virtues of the BMW i3. That model is unusual among electric vehicles, as in addition to the electric drive, it also has a small petrol engine. However, unlike “hybrid” cars, which have a petrol-driven engine that can take over from the electric system when it runs out of charge, on longer journeys or at higher speeds, the i3’s petrol engine is only used to maintain the charge on the electric drive.
Continue reading...Storks with unhealthy appetites: mapping how animals interact with cities
New technology allows us to map the movements of animals in stunning detail and show how urban areas are affecting them. Cities present opportunities to some but are a threat to many others. These seven maps – extracted from Where the Animals Go by James Cheshire and Oliver Uberti – offer a glimpse into the lives of animals trying to make their way in our increasingly urbanised world
Continue reading...Country diary: Sleeping Beauty knew a thing or two about spindle's tempting lipstick berries
Wenlock Edge, Shropshire This shrub and its toxic fruit have a minor but magical part in ancient woodland
Shocking pink in a winter hedge, as if blown from some forever summer place, it is a colour out of season. And yet the spindle berries are perfectly at home in wood margins and hedges on the limestone of Wenlock Edge. It seems the spindle tree – which can grow six metres (20ft) tall but is usually a shrub – has a minor but magical part in ancient woodland and here associates with ash, field maple and dogwood. It has waxy, serrated-edge leaves, greeny-white four-petalled flowers and these extraordinary lipstick berries, each a four- or five-valved pod holding orange fruits that ripen in November-December.
Spindle is a square peg in a round hole, or vice-versa: its green stems begin round, develop a corky bark to become four-cornered, then turn rounder with age. It is named after the stick used to spin and wind thread from wool. In the psycho-mytho-panto of Sleeping Beauty, the goddess is deceived, pricks her finger on the spindle of human ambition, and sleeps until she is woken up by the god of rebirth. It is a winter story.
Continue reading...Traffic fumes in city streets 'largely wipe out exercise benefits for over-60s'
Groundbreaking study reinforces urgent need to reduce emissions, and advises over-60s to avoid polluted air by walking in parks and green spaces
The over-60s should stick to green spaces and parks when they go for a walk and avoid the city streets, according to a groundbreaking study that says air pollution from traffic fumes largely wipes out the health benefit from the exercise.
Walking is often recommended for older people, but the study from Imperial College London and Duke University in the USA suggests that the over-60s and those with lung and heart problems should steer clear of urban areas with heavy traffic. The negative effect may well be the same in younger people, say the authors, and it reinforces the urgency of reducing emissions in city streets.
Continue reading...Air pollution harm to unborn babies may be global health catastrophe, warn doctors
New UK research links toxic air to low birth weight that can cause lifelong damage to health, raising fears that millions of babies worldwide are being harmed
Air pollution significantly increases the risk of low birth weight in babies, leading to lifelong damage to health, according to a large new study.
The research was conducted in London, UK, but its implications for many millions of women in cities around the world with far worse air pollution are “something approaching a public health catastrophe”, the doctors involved said.
Weatherwatch: real-time maps of air pollution will soon make it easy to see where danger lies
We cannot see the tiny deadly particles that are killing people – but new digital advances are about to change that, which may spark action
In the days of London smogs it was possible to both see pollution and smell it. Now the deadliest particles are so small that it is hard for human senses to detect them, yet they are killing people just the same.
Health professionals and environmental groups may complain, but the general public seems oblivious to the danger that is damaging the health of children and adults alike in many towns and cities across the country. Perhaps it is our inability to see the cocktail of chemicals and particulates we are breathing in that has allowed successive governments to get away with doing so little about it for so long.
Continue reading...Future of Adani coalmine hanging by a thread after Chinese banks back out
Bob Carr says decision could be the end for controversial Carmichael project, adding: ‘It couldn’t have been more emphatic’
Adani’s Carmichael coalmine project will not be funded by Chinese banks, the Chinese embassy has said, in a move some see as dooming the project, and potentially Adani’s operations in Australia.
Bob Carr, the former New South Wales premier and former foreign minister, told the Guardian he had been lobbying Chinese businesses and government for three weeks before receiving confirmation from the Chinese embassy in Australia that no Chinese bank would be financing the controversial project.
Continue reading...Ryan Zinke recommends Trump shrink two more US national monuments
- Interior secretary aims to reduce Cascade-Siskiyou and Gold Butte monuments
- Zinke hits back at Patagonia after ad said ‘the president stole your land’
Interior secretary Ryan Zinke has announced recommendations to shrink two more national monuments in the western US – Cascade-Siskiyou in Oregon and California, and Gold Butte in Nevada.
Related: Trump slashes size of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase national monuments in Utah
Continue reading...Brexit is a chance to save our small farms | Letters
Your article (Clean, green New Zealand is a lie – and a warning for Britain’s countryside, 4 December) highlights the huge opportunity Brexit has presented us to create a new agriculture policy that will restore the natural environment, as well as help the farming industry to become more financially resilient and environmentally sustainable. The removal of “subsidies” following the New Zealand model is not the route to achieving this. Public funding is critical to farmers’ livelihoods – without it, roughly half of farming is uneconomic. Those likely to suffer the most are small- to medium-sized farms already struggling in very tough markets. A fifth of English farms have disappeared in the past 10 years, and the rate is fastest amongst the smallest. Almost a third of farms under 50 hectares vanished between 2005 and 2015. Farm size diversity is key to sustaining rural communities through jobs as well as protecting distinctive local character. It is also crucial to maintaining England’s world-renowned landscapes and diversity of food. We are presented with a once in a lifetime opportunity to create a farming policy framework and new funding model that will support all farmers, rural communities and economies if we are to create the diverse, thriving countryside most of us want to see.
Graeme Willis
Senior Rural Policy Campaigner, Campaign to Protect Rural England
• It is unfair of you to reduce Michael Gove’s record as environment secretary to “presentational gimmicks” (Editorial, 5 December). Few environmentalists regarded Mr Gove as a natural soulmate when he was appointed, but his short time in office has been, on the whole, hugely impressive. The UK stands to lose vital environmental protections when we leave the EU. These must be replaced. We need to carry into UK law the environmental principles (polluter pays, the precautionary principle etc) that underpin policy; and we need a strong, independent watchdog to replicate the beneficial role now played by the European Court of Justice and the European Commission in holding governments to account for their environmental practice. There is a long way to go, but Michael Gove gets this, as he gets the need to address the rising tide of plastic pollution and the alarming erosion of soil quality. What we now need is a much stronger green narrative from other parts of government, not least on housing and transport, and an unequivocal commitment to match and then exceed current EU environmental standards.
Shaun Spiers
Executive director, Green Alliance
Hadrian's Wall joins forces with China's Great Wall to promote heritage sites
‘Wall to Wall’ project will see heritage experts from the UK and China work together to increase understanding of both sites and boost tourism
One is 13,171 miles long and, contrary to popular belief, cannot actually be seen from space. The other is 73 miles long and cannot be seen from Sunderland.
But now the Great Wall of China is joining up with its much tinier British counterpart, Hadrian’s Wall, to encourage more tourism and increase the historical and cultural understanding of both great barriers.
Continue reading...Big apples: unusual weather produces fruit twice the normal size
Morrisons supermarket says the apples will be the biggest sold in living memory
A British supermarket is selling supersized Braeburn apples after unusual weather conditions in the spring produced a crop of giants.
The latest frost for nearly 20 years in April meant fewer apples grew, with as much as 10% of the country’s Braeburn crop affected. However, farmers were surprised to find that the reduced crop had grown to more than twice the normal size and weight.
Continue reading...Red list: thousands of species at risk of extinction due to human activity
Unsustainable farming, fishing and climate change has intensified the struggle for survival among vulnerable animals and crops, says IUCN at the release of its latest list of endangered species
Thousands of animal species are at critical risk of going extinct due to unsustainable farming and fishing methods and climate change, a conservation group has warned as it released the latest red list of endangered species.
In a rare piece of good news, the International Union for Conservation of Nature [IUCN] praised New Zealand for its success in turning around the fortunes of two species of kiwi, prompting it to upgrade them from endangered to vulnerable.
Continue reading...Brexit poses huge risk to Britain's food standards, report says
Rush to secure trade deals could lead to a lowering of standards and poorer quality food in supermarkets
Brexit poses huge risks to food standards in the UK and will have “seismic implications” for its food and farming systems, according to a new report.
Author Dan Crossley, executive director of the Food Ethics Council, said that the UK faced a stark choice between promoting a high quality, ethical and sustainable system and “a race to the bottom” driven by a desire to secure post-Brexit trade deals “at any cost”.
Continue reading...