The Guardian
Raw sewage 'flowing into rivers across England and Wales'
WWF analysis reports that 40% of rivers are polluted with sewage that can harm wildlife and put human health at risk
Raw sewage is flowing into rivers at thousands of sites across England and Wales, a report has warned, harming wildlife and putting human health at risk.
The total amount of raw sewage intentionally being put into rivers is unknown, which is a “huge concern”, according to conservation group WWF, which produced the analysis. The available data suggests that more than half of overflow sites spill sewage into rivers at least once a month and 14% at least once a week.
Continue reading...Our cities need fewer cars, not cleaner cars
Electric cars won’t eradicate gridlocks and air pollution, but carbon footprints could be cut by favouring pedestrians, cyclists and mass transit
The spectre of our cities choking with unhealthy air has prompted numerous governments to mandate a transition to electric cars. Their concerns are well founded, even if their proposals fall short of what is needed.
Over the past four decades, cars have become far less polluting. Their fuel efficiency has practically doubled and their tailpipe emissions have been reduced by more than 95%. Yet cities such as London and Paris are still battling smog and pollution. California has for decades demanded the toughest emission standards in the US, and yet Los Angeles heads the list of US cities for bad air quality. Moving to all-electric car fleets will be a positive step, albeit an inadequate measure.
Continue reading...The Texas town where all the energy is green
Georgetown mayor Dale Ross is ‘a good little Republican’ – but ever since his city weaned itself off fossil fuels, he has become a hero to environmentalists
When the caller said he worked for Harry Reid and the former Senate majority leader wanted a word, Dale Ross assumed it was a joke. “OK, which of my buddies are messing with me today?” he wondered.
He shouldn’t have been so surprised. Ross is the mayor of Georgetown, population 65,000, and he has become a minor celebrity in environmental circles as a result of a pioneering decision in 2015 to get all the city’s electricity from renewable sources.
High-street outlets move to ditch plastic amid environmental concerns
Pret A Manger becomes the latest to act by offering free filtered water and selling empty glass bottles
A growing number of outlets selling food and drink in the UK are taking action to ditch plastic amid deepening concern about its effect on the environment, with drinking straws and bottles among items being phased out.
Pret A Manger has become the latest to take action, announcing that it has installed taps dispensing free filtered water and started selling empty glass bottles in its three vegetarian stores. The scheme is due to be rolled out to branches in Manchester from the end of October.
Continue reading...The world is going slow on coal, but misinformation is distorting the facts
A recent story on 621 plants being built globally was played up in various media – but the figure is way off the mark
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This is a story about how misinformation can take hold. It’s not always down to dishonesty. Sometimes it’s just a lack of time, a headline and the multiplying power of ideological certainty.
Last week, China announced it was stopping or postponing work on 151 coal plants that were either under, or earmarked for, construction.
Continue reading...Country diary 1917: bungled wasps' nest theft leads to discovery
Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 19 October 1917
Someone had taken a wasps’ nest. Perhaps as he carried it home some of the inmates objected, or he discovered that most of the cells were empty; at any rate it had been dropped, and lay broken by the path. Over the grubless cakes a few weary workers, chilled by the night exposure, crawled feebly, and three young queens refused to leave the ruins of what had once been their home. They seemed puzzled by the tragedy which had overtaken the busy colony, but they were too weak or too stupid to fly in search of shelter. Two of them died quietly in my killing bottle, but it was not until I pinned the bodies on a setting-board that I discovered that one was abnormal. Either through accident in her youth or from birth she was a cripple; the second and third legs on the right side were missing. Imperfectly developed insects are not rare; but the interesting point about this wasp was that she had made the best of a bad business. When she was alive I did not notice anything peculiar about her gait, but when I attempted to set her limbs I found that the third leg refused to remain on the left side. It was only then that I found that the right legs were missing, and that, in order to avoid the bias of three legs against one, the third left leg was bent under so as to work on the right side. I was sorry that I had not kept her alive to watch her manner of walking.
Related: Conservationists slam 'hateful' survey promoting wasp killing
Continue reading...Birdwatch: On the trail of the elusive buff-breasted sandpiper
It never occurred to me, peering through rain-soaked binoculars, that I would have to wait 43 years to see another one
It was late September 1974. Manchester United led the old Second Division, Kung Fu Fighting was top of the pop charts, and the BBC had just launched its Ceefax service. Meanwhile, I was birdwatching on the Isles of Scilly, thanks to my mother’s far-sighted decision to take me out of school for a fortnight, slap-bang in the middle of the migration season.
We saw some good birds, including Iceland gull, scarlet rosefinch and a sharp-tailed sandpiper from Siberia. But nearly 50 years later, those I remember best were three buff-breasted sandpipers, plump little waders that had flown all the way across the Atlantic, driven off course by the tail end of a hurricane.
Continue reading...California wildfires: moment family's dog is found alive in ruins of home – video
Jack Weaver and his brother-in-law Patrick Widen walked around police barricades, through a creek and up treacherous hilly roads to film the devastation caused by the wildfires in Santa Rosa, California. Weaver’s mother, Katherine, was convinced the family’s dog, Izzy, had died in the fire that destroyed their neighbourhood. When the men reached the end of the narrow road, they saw their house was completely ruined. But then Izzy came bounding out of the rubble for a joyous reunion. Weaver captured the scene on his phone
Continue reading...Wild is the wind: the resource that could power the world
Wind isn’t just mysterious, destructive and exhilarating – capturing just 2% of it would solve the planet’s energy needs at a stroke. And as the windiest country in Europe, Britain is at the forefront of this green revolution
The wind rips along the Humber estuary in Hull. It’s the kind that presses your coat to your back and pushes you on to your toes. “A bit too windy,” shouts Andy Sykes, before his words are swept away. He is the head of operational excellence at the Siemens factory, which supplies blades – the bits that turn – to windfarms in the North Sea. At 75 metres long, they are hard to manoeuvre when it’s gusting.
Inside the vast factory hall, the blades lie in various states of undress. Several hundred layers of fibreglass and balsa wood are being tucked into giant moulds by hand. There are “naked” blades that require paint and whose bodies have the patina of polished tortoiseshell. Look through the hollow blades from the broadest part, and a pale green path, the tinge of fibreglass, snakes down the long tunnel, tapering to a small burst of daylight at its tip.
Continue reading...David Attenborough urges action on plastics after filming Blue Planet II
Naturalist says experience making second series of BBC show revealed devastating threat posed to oceans by plastic
Sir David Attenborough has called for the world to cut back on its use of plastic in order to protect oceans. His new BBC TV series, Blue Planet II, is to demonstrate the damage the material is causing to marine life.
Speaking at the launch of Blue Planet II, which will be broadcast 16 years after the original series, the broadcaster and naturalist said action on plastics should be taken immediately and that humanity held the future of the planet “in the palm of its hands”.
Continue reading...'This is the future': solar-powered family car hailed by experts
As the annual solar race across Australia wraps up, a Dutch entry averaged 69kmh from Darwin to Adelaide and resupplied the grid
A futuristic family car that not only uses the sun as power but supplies energy back to the grid has been hailed as “the future” as the annual World Solar Challenge wrapped up in Australia.
Related: How green is Britain’s record on renewable energy supply?
Continue reading...The eco guide to radical materials
Cotton has a disastrous foorprint, leather is destroying the Amazon, polyester threatens the ozone layer. Luckily there are some new fabrics on the way
The current exhibition at New York’s Museum of Modern Art asks: “Is Fashion Modern?” Looking at the industry’s main materials you would have to answer “no”. The global wardrobe of cotton and polyester (invented around 80 years ago) spells ecological disaster.
How do you take the cow (with its thunderous footprint) out of a pair of leather shoes?
Continue reading...Adani’s Carmichael coalmine won’t go ahead, Greens leader says
Richard Di Natale ‘confident’ if project can’t be stopped in parliament or for financial reasons, Australians will stand in front of bulldozers
Adani’s Carmichael coalmine won’t go ahead, the Greens leader Richard Di Natale said, predicting “many, many thousands” of Australians would come together to protest any moves to stop the project.
Di Natale said he believed Australians largely stood against the Carmichael coalmine, choosing the Great Barrier Reef and the environment over the construction of what has been billed as the largest coal project in the southern hemisphere.
Continue reading...From dead woods to triumph of nature, 30 years after the Great Storm
The devastating winds of 1987 felled 15 million trees but also prompted a radical change to the way we work with the countryside to let it heal itself
It is remembered as a generation-defining moment, the night when ships ran aground, London endured its first blackout since the Blitz, 18 people died and 15 million trees were toppled. But the devastation wrought by the Great Storm of 1987 also left in its wake a startling woodland recovery, prompting a radical reshaping of the way we work with nature to care for the countryside.
Thirty years ago on Monday the storm hit south-east England after a fierce wind swooped up from the Bay of Biscay, across a corner of northern France before making landfall in the south-west and sweeping through southern England to bring the full force of its 100mph winds to bear on the south-east.
Continue reading...Dignity in chains: stark macaque portrait shines light on animals’ plight in Indonesia
Nona is a Sulawesi crested black macaque. Photographed here by Stefano Unterthiner, she is seen chained to a chair outside the house where she is kept as a pet. The scene is made particularly poignant because Unterthiner has included in his image the shadow of Nona, her chain and a tree, thus underlining the freedom that the little animal has lost. At the same time, the owner of Nona – which means “miss” – stands relaxing in the early morning sun.
It is illegal to keep this critically endangered animal in captivity. Yet the law is rarely enforced, particularly in remote areas. Hence the grim picture – though far worse was taken by Unterthiner, an Italian wildlife photographer, during his visit to the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. Hunting, the live-animal trade and forest clearance have caused the animal’s population on the island to crash by 90% in the past 30 years. Only a few thousand are left there.
Continue reading...Bodycam footage shows woman's rescue from California wildfire - video
Bodycam footage from a Sonoma County police officer shows the rescue of a woman in Santa Rosa. Thirty-five fatalities have been recorded so far, making it the deadliest week in California wildfire history. The death toll could rise further as search-and-rescue teams are deployed to sift through the remains of 3,500 burned buildings. Hundreds of missing persons reports have been resolved, but stories continue to emerge of people who did not make it out alive
‘Just ash and bones’: California wildfire survivors mourn loved ones
Continue reading...Geoengineering is not a quick fix for climate change, experts warn Trump
Leading researchers and campaigners express concern that geoengineering research could be used as an excuse not to reduce CO2 emissions
Leading climate scientists have warned that geoengineering research could be hijacked by climate change deniers as an excuse not to reduce CO2 emissions, citing the US administration under Donald Trump as a major threat to their work.
David Keith, a solar geoengineering (GE) expert at Harvard University has said there is a real danger that his work could be exploited by those who oppose action on emissions, at the same time as he defended himself and colleagues from the claims GE strengthens the argument for abandoning the targets set by the Paris climate agreement.
Continue reading...Country diary: rewilding a river I fished with Arthur Ransome
Ribblesdale, North Yorkshire Wild trout are once again thriving in the beck my grandfather tended for the Manchester Anglers’ Association
When I was a kid I recall fishing for minnows with a jam jar by the Ribble and being sketched by a man in wire-framed specs. It was the writer Arthur Ransome, who was there with my grandfather, Nat Hunt, then river keeper for the Manchester Anglers’ Association. I no longer have that sketch, but I do still own a card Ransome sent Grandad praising his hand-crafted trout flies (“north country spiders”).
Related: Peak District: Rewilding the rivers
Continue reading...Police show their true colours at fracking protest | Letters
When the police forcibly remove a 79-year-old woman for serving refreshments to fracking protesters, you know they have taken sides (Report, 11 October). Having wasted their time and our money dragging pensioners around, the Lancashire constabulary has asked the Home Office for an extra £3.1m to cover the cost of drafting in police from Somerset and Wales. It is time for the policing operation at New Preston Road to be scaled back, or called off altogether. The police are helping to impose a government decision to frack, which is opposed by local residents at every level of local government. The police should go back to patrolling the streets and arresting criminals, instead of defending corporate interests by harassing the protesters.
Jenny Jones
Green party, House of Lords
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Continue reading...Climate change masterplan, plastics and penguin troubles – green news roundup
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