The Guardian
The week in wildlife – in pictures
A wild boar, clown fish and two rhinoceros calves are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world
Continue reading...Australia lagging on electric cars and tax breaks needed to drive demand – report
Australia Institute wants free access to bus lanes after electric cars accounted for just 0.1% of new car sales in 2015
Tax breaks and free access to bus lanes should be used to help reverse Australia’s poor uptake of electric vehicles, a new report has said.
Australians remain deeply reluctant to buy electric cars, which accounted for just 0.1% of new car sales in 2015. Australia is increasingly falling behind other countries, particularly in Europe, where sales of electric cars represented 1.2% of new European Union car sales in the same year.
Continue reading...Chevron abandons plan to drill for oil in Great Australian Bight
Environmentalists hail decision that comes almost exactly a year after BP ditched its own scheme for the untapped basin
Chevron has become the second big oil company to abandon plans to drill for oil in the Great Australian Bight, almost exactly a year after BP ditched its more advanced plans for the untapped basin.
Oil companies have compared the potential of the bight to the Gulf of Mexico, where there are thousands of oil rigs.
Continue reading...Penguin catastrophe leads to demands for protection in Antarctica
After failure of Adélie penguins to breed, WWF calls for measures to ensure they do not face competition from fishing fleets for food
Only two Adélie penguin chicks from a colony of more than 18,000 breeding pairs have survived the Antarctic summer due to unusually extensive sea ice, prompting environmental campaigners to call for a new protected marine area.
The penguins in Terre Adélie in eastern Antarctica, which only reproduce on ice-free land, suffered a catastrophic breeding season after unseasonable growth in sea ice forced parents to travel further for food, causing their chicks to starve.
Continue reading...Proof that sustainable meat and dairy farming can work | Letters
I had just got back into the house from milking the cows when I read the discussion (Letters, 7 October) on George Monbiot’s latest contribution to the debate about the future of our food production system. While George is a fundamentalist, I must confess I agree with much of what he says! The problem is that, as an extremist fundamentalist, he just goes too far. Here on our rented family farm of 100 dairy cows with some beef and sheep, we are in the first year of a three-year, final-stage experiment to challenge the idea that treating our animals, land, environment and the people who work and live here with respect is somehow incompatible with financial viability and our industry’s ability to provide adequate amounts of affordable food, and is therefore unsustainable.
This is the final part of a much longer-term experiment, incorporating agroecology, agroforestry and calf-with-cow dairying along with appropriate technologies that allow us to achieve these public benefit outcomes. On paper this could work. In practice it hasn’t been easy. But there are glimmers of daylight. We are on the final stretch and many of our targets have been met: substantial (90%-plus) cuts in the use of antibiotics, anthelmintics, vaccines, soluble fertiliser and pesticides (and diffuse pollution) without compromising productivity or animal health; and substantial increases in biodiversity and reductions in staff working hours.
Continue reading...New airplane biofuels plan would 'destroy rainforests', warn campaigners
Plan to accelerate production of biofuels for passenger planes would lead to clearing of rainforests to produce ‘vast’ amount of necessary crops
A new plan to accelerate production of biofuels for passenger planes has drawn stinging criticism from environmentalists who argue that most of the world’s rainforests might have to be cleared to produce the necessary crops.
Aviation is one of the fastest growing sources of greenhouse gas emissions, with an 8% leap reported in Europe last year and a global fourfold increase in CO2 pollution expected by 2050.
Continue reading...You say tomato, retailers say waste: research finds produce problem
Researcher reveals up to 86.7% of edible tomatoes are thrown away, underlining Australia’s costly food waste culture
Up to 87% of undamaged, edible tomatoes harvested from a commercial Queensland farm were rejected and wasted based on appearance, a study has found, highlighting the problem of food wastage.
Tara McKenzie, an environmental scientist at the University of the Sunshine Coast, said that at every point in the supply chain, edible tomatoes that were slightly odd-shaped or marked or deemed too small or too large were rejected because they didn’t meet market standards for premium, unblemished product. She found between 68.6% and 86.7% of the produce was rejected.
Continue reading...Supermarkets must stop using plastic packaging, says former Asda boss
Exclusive: Consumers do not want plastic-polluted oceans so supermarkets and packaging industry have to work together, says Andy Clarke
The former boss of Asda is calling for supermarkets to stop using plastic packaging saying billions of pounds of investment in recycling has failed to resolve the world’s plastic proliferation crisis.
Andy Clarke, CEO of one of Britain’s biggest supermarket chains for six years, said the only solution was for retailers to reject plastic entirely in favour of more sustainable alternatives like paper, steel, glass and aluminium.
Continue reading...UK climate change masterplan – the grownups have finally won
Government’s clean growth strategy unequivocally states that tackling climate change and a prosperous economy go hand in hand
The grownups have finally won and everyone in the UK, from those in cold homes to those on polluted streets and in flooded towns, will benefit. The most important aspect of the UK government’s new clean growth strategy is its unequivocal statement that tackling climate change and a prosperous economy are one and the same thing.
This has been clear to many for some time, including Philip Hammond, if not his predecessor George Osborne. There is no long-term, high-carbon economic strategy because the impacts of unchecked climate change destroy economies, as Lord Nicholas Stern puts it.
Continue reading...Draughty homes targeted in UK climate change masterplan
Ministers publish long-delayed blueprint for hitting target of cutting emissions by 57% in next 15 years
The UK’s draughtiest homes will be insulated and upgraded by 2035 to save families as much as £300 a year on their energy bills, under the government’s climate change masterplan.
The long-delayed blueprint for how the UK will hit its binding target of cutting emissions by 57% by 2032 majors on support for everything from low-carbon power, energy savings and electric vehicles to keeping food waste out of landfill.
Finding Nemo? We may be losing him, says climate study
Clownfish under threat from warming ocean waters, which are damaging the anemones that serve as its home
The clownfish, the colourful swimmer propelled to fame by the 2003 film Finding Nemo, is under threat from warming ocean waters wreaking havoc with sea anemones, the structures that serve as its home, a study has found.
Closely related to corals, sea anemones are invertebrate marine creatures that live in symbiosis with algae, which provide them with food, oxygen and colour.
Continue reading...'Boar War': the Forest of Dean pixies fighting against the cull of wild pigs
Activists claim the boar should be welcomed in Gloucestershire – and they are determined to sabotage marksmen targeting pigs roaming ancient woodland
Drew Pratten admits it can be a little unnerving to suddenly come upon a wild boar in the forest.
“They are very big. When they growl at you it’s primal. You get the sort of feeling deep in your stomach that you get when you hear a lion roar. But these animals don’t want to hurt anyone. If you slowly back away they are fine. We should all be living peacefully together.”
Continue reading...Country diary: olitary wasp's embrace means the end of the road
Sandy, Bedfordshire The fly’s head tipped back a little, eyes the colour of a tired strawberry, its legs frozen, as if in ecstasy
Sitting down at the wheel of the car I found my view through the windscreen partially obscured by two large insects having sex. At least, this was how things looked from the driver’s seat. A solitary wasp had mounted its mate and wrapped its forelegs fondly around its neck. It had managed to anchor the both of them to the sloping glass with its rear feet.
This wasp was an angular Audrey Hepburn of insects, narrow-waisted with a pencil-point slender abdomen and an impeccable dress sense of yellow and black hoops and bars. It had pulled big time, for its “partner” was a whopper of a catch – a giant house fly, its coarse-haired, scabby, bulbous, abdomen flattened against the screen.
Continue reading...Australian desert reaches peak budgie as thousands dazzle wildlife photographer
Steven Pearce captures up to 10,000 birds swooping for a drink at an outback water hole in rare display he describes as a marvel of agility
A wildlife photographer has captured stunning images of budgerigars in a murmuration of up to 10,000 birds near a water hole outside Alice Springs.
Steven Pearce said the display was rare, unique and relatively short-lived – lasting for only about 10 minutes. Pearce was able to shoot dozens of photos displaying the birds’ agility and dazzling splashes of colour in the middle of the desert.
Continue reading...Abbot Point coal terminal: Westpac may not refinance Adani loan
Report reveals Adani needs to refinance $2bn of loans for Abbot Point coal terminal, which is more than it paid for it in 2011
Adani’s financing for its proposed Carmichael coalmine could face a further hurdle, with Westpac appearing to indicate it will not refinance its existing loan to Adani’s coal terminal at Abbot Point.
A recent report by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (Ieefa) revealed Adani needed to refinance more than $2bn worth of loans for its Abbot Point coal terminal in the coming year – an amount that is more than it paid for the port in 2011. That means the company has negative equity on the facility – owing banks more than it is worth.
Continue reading...Fossil fuels win billions in public money after Paris climate deal, angry campaigners claim
Coal, oil and gas finance from major development banks totalled $5bn in year after historic climate pact, according to estimates
Billions of dollars of public money was sunk in new fossil fuel projects by the world’s major development banks in the year after the Paris climate change deal was agreed, according to campaigners who are calling for the banks to halt their financing of coal, oil and gas.
The new analysis also reveals that some of the taxpayers’ money given to coal and gas projects was counted as “climate” finance.
Continue reading...Trump’s pro-coal agenda is a blow for clean air efforts at Texas' Big Bend park
For decades the national park’s stunning vistas have been compromised by poor air quality, and prospects of improvement were derailed by Trump Tuesday
Big Bend national park is Texas at its most cinematic, with soaring, jagged forest peaks looming over vast desert lowlands, at once haughty and humble, prickly and pretty. It is also among the most remote places in the state.
Even from Alpine, the town of 6,000 that is the main gateway to the park, it is more than an hour’s drive to one of the entrances.
Continue reading...Elephants mourn. Dogs love. Why do we deny the feelings of other species?
Scientists are discovering more and more about the internal lives of animals. But what does this mean for the way humans behave?
Last week footage of five young elephants being captured in Zimbabwe to sell to zoos travelled round the world. Parks officials used helicopters to find the elephant families, shot sedatives into the young ones, then hazed away family members who came to the aid of the drugged young ones as they fell.
The film, shared exclusively with the Guardian, showed the young captives being trussed up and dragged on to trucks. In the final moments of footage, two men repeatedly kick a small dazed elephant in the head.
Continue reading...NUS campaigner Robbie Young: students, lay down your straws
The NUS vice president wants university unions and young people to play their part in reducing plastic waste
Robbie Young has had enough.
“We’re surrounded by plastic straws. 500 million of them are used and discarded every day in the United States alone, with fatal consequences for the wildlife that swallows them. As young people we have a responsibility to do something about that.”
The Seabin: the debris-sucking saviour of the oceans
This new device literally sucks rubbish from the water’s surface, and it’s starting with Portsmouth harbour
Name: The Seabin.
Age: Brand new.
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