The Guardian
Britain flouting duty to protect citizens from toxic air pollution – UN
Exclusive: Special rapporteur’s mission finds government has violated obligation to protect people’s lives and health
The UK government is “flouting” its duty to protect the lives and health of its citizens from illegal and dangerous levels of air pollution, according to the UN’s special rapporteur on human rights related to toxic waste.
Baskut Tuncak issued his warning after a fact-finding mission to the UK in January at the invitation of the government in a report that has been shared exclusively with the Guardian before it is presented to the UN human rights council this week.
Continue reading...What was in the air at Birling Gap? Investigations continue
There is still no confirmed cause for the toxic haze that affected the Sussex coastline last month
Items from the shipping lanes frequently wash up on UK beaches. Occasionally hazardous chemical containers appear prompting local beach closures. The incident on the East Sussex coast on 27 August was on much larger scale.
Although media reports focused on the beach at Birling Gap, air pollution monitors tell us that the affected area was much bigger. An apparent sharp rise in ozone was detected on Eastbourne sea front at 4:45pm and then about 30 minutes later at Lullington Heath, 8km to the west and 5km inland from Birling Gap – an area of over 40 square km.
Continue reading...North West Cambridge: a model for affordable urban housing?
At the centre of debates about green belts is the question of trust. In theory it should be possible to build on a very small proportion of the nation’s green belts in such a way that affordable housing and sustainable communities are created, and more people have more and better access to nature than before. In practice few people trust that this will happen, as the available evidence is that we will get instead a smearing of developers’ standard products across the countryside, for sale at inflated prices.
The promise of what’s called the North West Cambridge Development is that it will indeed achieve these good things. Here the University of Cambridge is turning 150 hectares of what was flat, inaccessible and somewhat featureless farmland, located between the city and the M11, into a billion-pound urban district the area of which is not much smaller than the historic centre of Cambridge itself. Three thousand homes are planned, half of them affordable, plus 2,000 postgraduate student bed spaces, 100,000 sq m of research facilities, and the schools, shops, surgeries and the like needed to sustain them. Two new public parks are being created, one between the new development and the old city, the other a series of lakes and mounds that buffer the sights and sounds of the motorway.
Continue reading...Global shockwaves from electric cars will be here sooner rather than later
When Jaguar Land Rover followed in the tracks of Volvo last week with its shift to an electric-powered future, the car maker didn’t just talk about hybrids and batteries.
Its chief executive also showed that his company, like governments and oil firms, is finally waking up to the global shockwaves electric cars will bring about. They are far more profound than whether drivers top up via a pump or a plug.
Continue reading...The eco guide to healthy beaches
It’s not about pristine sands – we need seaweed, coral and mangroves to sustain marine wildlife and protect the world’s coasts
To the untrained eye, all beaches can look healthy – the sea gives them a restorative glow. The Beach Ecology Coalition is based in California, but its indicators for a healthy beach broadly hold for Skegness as much as California’s Laguna. Don’t be fooled by pristine beaches. A healthy one should be strewn with wrack: organic litter including seaweed that sustains beach hoppers and birds.
Healthy beaches should be strewn with organic litter
Continue reading...‘My job is to clean up the environment. China really wants to do that’
Environmental lawyer James Thornton says China’s ‘ecological civilisation’ concept is the best response to the world’s environmental crisis
James Thornton’s specialty is suing governments and corporations on behalf of his only client – the Earth – and he’s very good at it. In his four decades of legal practice across three continents, he’s never lost a case.
Acknowledging this in 2009 the New Statesman named him one of the ten people likely to change the world; ClientEarth, the public interest environmental law firm he started in London in 2007 now employs 106 people.
Land grab in Amazon jungle threatens dispossession, violence and murder
On 23 August it emerged that the president of Brazil, Michel Temer, had issued a decree abolishing the protected status of an immense area of the Amazon forest. The area is in the north of the country, beyond the Amazon river, going up to the frontiers with French Guiana and Suriname (formerly Dutch Guiana). The estimated size is 4.5 million hectares, the size of Denmark or Switzerland.
The decree was shocking, but not entirely unexpected. Temer is in political difficulties, facing corruption charges and needing political allies. There are more than 30 registered political parties in Brazil, and to get anything done in Congress they form bancadas (“benches” or coalitions). One of the most powerful is the bancada ruralista, consisting of powerful, wealthy agribusiness interests (mostly cattle and soya) together with those who represent mining and other extractive industries. And, making things gloomier, the evangelicals attach themselves to this bancada.
Continue reading...This is how your world could end
In an extract from his book Ends of the World, Peter Brannen examines mass extinction events and the catastrophic outcome of rising temperatures for all the world’s population
Many of us share some dim apprehension that the world is flying out of control, that the centre cannot hold. Raging wildfires, once-in-1,000-years storms and lethal heatwaves have become fixtures of the evening news – and all this after the planet has warmed by less than 1C above preindustrial temperatures. But here’s where it gets really scary.
If humanity burns through all its fossil fuel reserves, there is the potential to warm the planet by as much as 18C and raise sea levels by hundreds of feet. This is a warming spike of an even greater magnitude than that so far measured for the end-Permian mass extinction. If the worst-case scenarios come to pass, today’s modestly menacing ocean-climate system will seem quaint. Even warming to one-fourth of that amount would create a planet that would have nothing to do with the one on which humans evolved or on which civilisation has been built. The last time it was 4C warmer there was no ice at either pole and sea level was 80 metres higher than it is today.
Continue reading...One of world's largest marine parks created off coast of Easter Island
Rapa Nui protection area, about same size as Chilean mainland, will protect up to 142 species, including 27 threatened with extinction
One of the world’s largest marine protection areas has been created off the coast of Easter Island.
The 740,000 sq km Rapa Nui marine park is roughly the size of the Chilean mainland and will protect at least 142 endemic marine species, including 27 threatened with extinction.
Continue reading...Springtails … faster than your average photographer's reflexes
Humphrey Head, Cartmel Peninsula Tiny creatures, with remarkable jumping ability, dwell in the carboniferous limestone hills above Morecambe Bay
Dense vegetation alive with birdsong clings to the face of Humphrey Head. Gazing up at the gaping mouth of Edgar’s Arch, a blowhole in Cumbria’s highest limestone headland – and above a bushy beard of trees, shrubs and creepers – I forget to watch my feet. Result? I become stuck in one of the glutinous exiting channels that booby-trap Morecambe Bay’s shores.
Good Samaritans hoist me to my feet, “We’re on a weekend activity hen do,” says the one in the “Game Over” T-shirt. “Glad the tide’s out,” says the group’s instructor, her top labelled “Boss”. “Folk get mired down like mice in those traps with sticky floors. Then the tide sneaks in.”
Continue reading...Europe must step up action against spread of fatal plant disease, says Gove
Environment secretary says EU must combat spread of Xylella fastidiosa by stopping high-risk species from crossing borders unchecked
Europe must implement greater protections against a disease that could threaten UK plants and trees, including oaks, the environment secretary Michael Gove has said.
The horticulture sector is also being urged to take action to prevent Xylella fastidiosa, which is having a devastating impact on plants such as olive trees in parts of mainland Europe, spreading to the UK.
Continue reading...US presidents and how to deal with hurricanes – video explainer
George W Bush’s presidency never fully recovered from his botched handling of Hurricane Katrina. Barack Obama won re-election just days after Hurricane Sandy struck. So how can presidents respond effectively to natural disasters? And how has Donald Trump managed the response to Harvey and Irma?
Continue reading...Sea salt around the world is contaminated by plastic, studies show
Exclusive: New studies find microplastics in salt from the US, Europe and China, adding to evidence that plastic pollution is pervasive in the environment
Sea salt around the world has been contaminated by plastic pollution, adding to experts’ fears that microplastics are becoming ubiquitous in the environment and finding their way into the food chain via the salt in our diets.
Following this week’s revelations in the Guardian about levels of plastic contamination in tap water, new studies have shown that tiny particles have been found in sea salt in the UK, France and Spain, as well as China and now the US.
The week in wildlife – in pictures
Stag deers in London’s Richmond Park, elks in east China, and Bactrian deer in central Asia are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world
Continue reading...Q&A: our plastic addiction is out of control. How can we consume less?
Our air, water and salt are contaminated by plastic and the impact on our health is unknown. While we wait for the findings, here are ways to reduce plastic use
Tap water around the world is contaminated with tiny plastic fibres, the Guardian revealed this week, and other pilot studies have revealed microplastics in beer, sugar, salt and honey, as well as in seafood, in the air in cities and in homes. The impact on health of this apparently pervasive pollution is unknown, though microplastics do harm some marine life and scientists are calling for urgent research.
Continue reading...Solar industry says EU tariffs on Chinese imports will raise panel prices
EU duties on Chinese solar modules are set to rise 30% above market levels signalling ‘huge negative effects’ for businesses
Europe’s solar industry has condemned an EU vote to impose another round of duties on Chinese imports, just weeks before a US trade panel is due to rule on similar tariffs.
A Brussels committee yesterday agreed to set minimum import duties for Chinese solar modules and cells that could price them up to 30% above market levels with “huge negative effects” for the industry, according to trade groups.
Continue reading...Study: mild floods are declining, but intense floods are on the rise | John Abraham
Milder floods that refill reservoirs are decreasing as severe floods become more common
It is well known that humans are causing the Earth to warm. We also know that a warmer atmosphere has more water vapor. Just like the air is more humid when it is warm, and less humid when cold. The more humid air leads to more intense precipitation and potentially more flooding. But how much change we will see is an open scientific question.
This question is made complex by the fact that flooding isn’t just about rain. It reflects a dependence on evaporation, rain, the ability of land and water management to handle water surges, and other factors. Fortunately, a very recent study out of Science Advances has helped advance our understanding of the confluence of global warming, intense rain and flooding.
Is it time for the arts to start saying no to oil money?
An artist has given away part of his winnings to protest against BP’s role in climate change. The company’s money has helped an unfashionable artform, but what’s at stake is far more important
We can’t stop looking at human faces. Can’t stop being interested in ourselves, our species. The BP Portrait Award, whose annual exhibition of winners and strong contenders can be seen at the National Portrait Gallery until 24 September, is full of humanity. It is, perhaps, the most humanist art prize in the world, an art award that specifically celebrates the painted human image and looks for modern heirs to the profoundly compassionate tradition of portraiture that includes Rembrandt, Velázquez and Lucian Freud.
Yet it may be time to get over ourselves. Has the moment come to put nature before portraiture, and abolish this oil-tainted oil painting prize?
Continue reading...Artist donates part of BP prize money to Greenpeace in oil sponsorship protest
Exclusive: Winner of the BP young artist award at UK’s National Portrait Gallery says donation is a protest against his art being used to promote the oil company
A painter who won a prestigious British portrait award sponsored by BP has donated part of his winnings to Greenpeace in protest at his art being used to promote the image of the multinational oil company.
Henry Christian-Slane, an artist from New Zealand, won the BP young artist award at the National Portrait Gallery for a painting of his partner Gabi. The high profile prize, which was chosen out of 2,580 entries, came with £7,000 prize money, which was presented by BP’s chief executive Bob Dudley.
Continue reading...Kazakhstan to reintroduce wild tigers after 70-year absence
Project supported by WWF is likely to take many years and involves creation of nature reserve and restoration of forest
Wild tigers are to be reintroduced to Kazakhstan 70 years after they became extinct in the country.
The animals will be reintroduced in the Ili-Balkhash region in a project that involves the creation of a nature reserve and the restoration of a forest that is part of the animal’s historical range.
Continue reading...