The Guardian
'You've thrown our budget a little out of whack', Trump tells Puerto Rico – video
Donald Trump has made his first visit to Puerto Rico since the US territory was pummelled by Hurricane Maria nearly two weeks ago. Shortly after landing in San Juan, the president praised his administration’s response, said the island’s leaders should be “very proud” of the low official death toll – and appeared to complain at the cost of the recovery effort. The island’s 3.4 million residents are still largely without electricity, communications and access to clean drinking water and food
Puerto Rico: Trump praises 'great job we've done' in visit to stricken island
Continue reading...Challenges of rural entrepreneurship | Letters
After nearly three decades of working in the mining industry and financial sector, I traded my stiletto heels for wellies and went sheep farming. It immediately became apparent that the traditional business model of farming was unsustainable; the reliance on EU subsidies, the volatile and seasonal price of lamb subject to the big supermarkets importing cheap meat, and a wool price that barely covered the cost of shearing. So I applied my City of London background to diversifying my business. From my farm, I now ship locally and internationally a range of luxury wool bedding made from the fleeces of much of the UK’s Southdown pedigreed flock. I also offer disabled-accessible self-catering accommodation for a working farm experience.
The problem with this business model is its dependency on three sectors, whose services I am finding totally inadequate and antiquated, to the point where my entrepreneurial initiative is being undermined.
Continue reading...Scottish government bans fracking after public opposition
Energy minister Paul Wheelhouse says allowing unconventional extraction of coal and gas would put climate goals at risk
The Scottish government has banned fracking after a consultation found overwhelming public opposition and little economic justification for the industry.
Paul Wheelhouse, the Scottish energy minister, told MSPs that allowing fracking would undermine the government’s ambitions to deeply cut Scotland’s climate emissions, and would lead to unjustifiable environmental damage.
Continue reading...Exclusive: footage shows young elephants being captured in Zimbabwe for Chinese zoos
Rare footage of the capture of wild young elephants in Zimbabwe shows rough treatment of the calves as they are sedated and taken away
The Guardian has been given exclusive footage which shows the capture of young, wild elephants in Zimbabwe in preparation, it is believed, for their legal sale to Chinese zoos.
In the early morning of 8 August, five elephants were caught in Hwange national park by officials at Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority (Zimparks).
Continue reading...Campaign urges people to recycle dead batteries
Major high street retailers back drive to encourage recycling after poll shows more than half throw batteries away in the bin
Major high street retailers have joined forces to encourage people to recycle their used household batteries as a new poll revealed that more than half of respondents admitted they throw them in the bin.
Asda, B&Q, Currys PC World, Marks & Spencer and Morrisons are all backing the drive to make it easier for consumers to recycle dead batteries and avoid millions ending up in landfill every year and wreaking environmental havoc.
Continue reading...Catholic church to make record divestment from fossil fuels
More than 40 Catholic institutions will make largest ever faith-based divestment, on the anniversary of the death of St Francis of Assisi
More than 40 Catholic institutions are to announce the largest ever faith-based divestment from fossil fuels, on the anniversary of the death of St Francis of Assisi.
The sum involved has not been disclosed but the volume of divesting groups is four times higher than a previous church record, and adds to a global divestment movement, led by investors worth $5.5tn.
Continue reading...Country diary: the house martins have taken their song and departed
Claxton, Norfolk When the amount of aerial plankton in the atmosphere drops, the birds head for Africa
In natural history, it is easy to notice a first for the year, but to be mindful of the last is more difficult. I know that the house martins are gone, yet their going from our village entailed an unremarkable dwindling of sights and sounds, but slowly, like a loss of moisture in a puddle.
I did have one memorable sighting last week in the Yare valley. Over Blackwater, about 40 were pooled above a poplar plantation and in and out of their midst swirled a single lost swift. The martins were smaller, busier, each one with a swept-back wing silhouette, which, depending on the way it turned, was shaped like a broad smile, or frown.
Continue reading...Slinging mud: inside (and outside) the UK's biggest fracking site
As horizontal drilling starts in Lancashire this month, the Guardian talks to protesters and staff at the Cuadrilla well
Mike Hill, sitting in his living room a few miles from a fracking site outside Blackpool, is brandishing a government letter brushing aside his concerns about the industry. “You, Theresa May, overruled democracy to force fracking on the residents of Fylde,” he says, referring to his own letter to the prime minister, in which he urges her to heed experts’ calls for tighter shale gas regulations.
“And then you won’t pay attention, the slightest attention, to anybody in regards fracking regulation, fracking monitoring, public health risks, risks to indigenous industries,” says the chartered engineer, who used to work in the oil and gas sector.
Continue reading...Michael Gove calls for views on setting up plastic bottle deposit return scheme
Environment secretary says working group will look at how a deposit return scheme could help reduce plastic waste in England
A deposit return scheme aimed at slashing plastic pollution has moved significantly closer after environment secretary Michael Gove said he would work with the industry to see how a scheme can be implemented in England.
Gove, speaking at the Conservative party conference in Manchester, announced a four-week call for views to inform how a deposit return scheme (DRS) would be designed. The government’s working group on the issue will also consider DRS for metal and glass containers.
Continue reading...Wildscreen's Witness the Wild open-air exhibition – in pictures
Bristol’s open-air arts trail sees large-scale images of ocean life by some of the world’s leading wildlife photographers come to the city’s suburbs, to raise awareness of the species and their fight for survival
Bags for life carry food poisoning risk if used for raw meat or fish
Use separate bags for raw foods, ready-to-eat foods, and household products to avoid bacteria spreading, warns food safety watchdog
Reusable “bags for life” can spread deadly food poisoning bacteria if they are used to carry raw foods such as fish and meat, consumers have been warned by the government’s food safety watchdog.
In revised guidance on its website, the Food Standards Agency (FSA) is recommending that shoppers use separate bags to carry raw foods, ready-to eat foods and non-food items such as household cleaners and washing powder.
Continue reading...Wildlife on your doorstep: October
There will be further autumnal signs in the northern hemisphere now October has shown up, while the southern hemisphere can finally begin to enjoy springtime. We’d like to see your photos of this month’s wildlife near you
For the northern hemisphere the leaves will only get browner, and the ground frostier, with October signalling a further shift towards the colder darker winter months ahead. For the southern hemisphere the month should be pleasant, with new signs of life emerging in the wild and warmer spring sunshine to be enjoyed by all. So what sort of wildlife will we all discover on our doorsteps? We’d like to see your photos of the October wildlife near you.
Share your photos and videos with us and we’ll feature our favourites on the Guardian site.
Continue reading...Why the 97% climate consensus is important | Dana Nuccitelli, John Cook, Sander van der Linden, Tony Leiserowitz, Ed Maibach
Some have argued that consensus messaging is counter-productive. Here’s why they’re wrong.
Unfortunately, humans don’t have infinite brain capacity, so no one can become an expert on every subject. But people have found ways to overcome our individual limitations through social intelligence, for example by developing and paying special attention to the consensus of experts. Modern societies have developed entire institutions to distill and communicate expert consensus, ranging from national academies of science to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Assessments of scientific consensus help us tap the collective wisdom of a crowd of experts. In short, people value expert consensus as a guide to help them navigate an increasingly complex and risk-filled world.
More generally, consensus is an important process in society. Human cooperation, from small groups to entire nations, requires some degree of consensus, for example on shared goals and the best means to achieve those goals. Indeed, some biologists have argued that “human societies are unable to function without consensus.” Neurological evidence even suggests that when people learn that they are in agreement with experts, reward signals are produced in the brain. Importantly, establishing consensus in one domain (e.g. climate science) can serve as a stepping stone to establishing consensus in other domains (e.g. need for climate policy).
Continue reading...Coca-Cola increased its production of plastic bottles by a billion last year, says Greenpeace
Increase puts Coke’s production at more than 110bn single-use plastic bottles a year, according to analysis by the green group
Coca-Cola increased its production of throwaway plastic bottles last year by well over a billion, according to analysis by Greenpeace.
The world’s biggest soft drinks company does not disclose how much plastic packaging it puts into the market. But analysis by the campaign group Greenpeace reveals what they say is an increase in production of single-use PET bottles from 2015-2016.
Continue reading...Poorly insulated homes may cost £1bn extra in energy bills
Legal loophole means landlords won’t need to comply with regulations aiming to protect tenants and cut carbon emissions
Tenants in the UK’s draughtiest homes risk paying £1bn extra in energy bills because of a government loophole letting landlords off the hook, a charity has warned.
Landlords will be banned from letting poorly insulated homes from next April under new regulations designed to protect vulnerable tenants and cut carbon emissions.
Continue reading...Natural health service: wildlife volunteers get mental health boost
Research supports the idea that nature could be widely prescribed by doctors as a therapy, easing the burden on the NHS
Volunteers on wildlife projects benefit from a big boost to their mental health, according to new research. It advances the idea that nature could be widely prescribed by doctors as a therapy, which its supporters say would ease the burden on the NHS.
The new analysis tracked people across England taking part in projects run by the Wildlife Trusts, ranging from nature walks and conservation work to the Men in Sheds project in Bolton, which makes bird tables and bug hotels.
Continue reading...Sardinia yacht club targets sailors with charter to cut plastic waste
Charta Smerelda aims to encourage 150,000 sailors to reduce plastic pollution in ocean and protect marine habitats
One of the most exclusive yacht clubs in the world has drawn up an environmental charter to ask 150,000 sailors across the globe to reduce plastic pollution in the ocean.
The Costa Smerelda yacht club in Sardinia, established by the Aga Khan 50 years ago, is publishing the charter to cut plastic waste at the One Ocean Forum conference. International sailing organisations have signed up to support the document which will be disseminated to 150,000 sailors who compete across the world.
Continue reading...Country diary: the charged stillness of the kestrel
Kinder Scout, Derbyshire Kestrel numbers may be in decline but we saw maybe half a dozen hanging in the updraft or plummeting into peat groughs
The perfect wild camping place: an obliging flat spot next to a horseshoe-shaped meander where the stream has carved out a tall bank from the soft shale grit, offering water close to hand and shelter from the wind. Best of all, our tents face towards a slope covered in reefs of purple heather that are being prowled by a kestrel. Though dinner consists of a bag of rehydrated dust, the opportunity to eat while watching a wild bird at work without hurry or distraction makes it feel positively luxurious.
I never fail to be captivated by kestrel flight; the suspenseful hovering, then the sudden swoop, that combination of charged stillness and sudden action that Gerard Manley Hopkins thrilled to in Windhover: “High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing… / then off, off forth on swing, / As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend.” Over an hour or so it makes several apparently unsuccessful plunges into the heather before finally reappearing with a vole in its talons.
Continue reading...Country diary 1917: lie down and listen to the lulling sound that comes with the wind
Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 8 October 1917
Winchelsea, October 7
Fine sensibilities have their penalties, God knows, more particularly in districts crowded by those who have them not; but the discriminations they make possible and the resultant harmonies of these discriminations are an offset that one would not forgo, especially with the added zest of memory. Lie on the dried bents, stretching your limbs to warm them in the last of the autumn sunshine; shut your eyes and listen. The first sound is like the patter of soft rain. You know that’s nonsense, because you can feel the hot sun, and you easily identify the aspen on
the slope above you. The harsher rustling comes from the heat-charred leaves of the chestnut near by. Through these, as you listen, comes a softer, sweeter, much higher note; a silky, lulling sound which comes and goes with the wind. You open one lazy eye and note the swaying of the reeds in the dykes. A long pause. The wind seems almost to have dropped, and yet you hear another insistent little noise, a fine low hissing, which makes you think of the “fire-magic” music. What can it be? This time you are nonplussed, and even when your eyes are opened the puzzle remains, because then, suddenly, you don’t hear it any more.
Lie down again and close them; stillness; no sounds except those you have already identified. Then again the tiny shrilling: it is the grass! The dried bents, whose miniature music grows so plain to the listener. A long and satisfied pause is roused by a new rushing roar. Is it possible that that shallow, lapping sea can so soon have whipped up to something like tempest? Then memory comes to your aid, and without opening your eyes you confidently murmur –
Continue reading...Chinese firm behind Essex nuclear plant refuses to reveal security information
State-owned company refused disclosure of security arrangements for Chinese plant the Bradwell nuclear station could be modelled on
The Chinese state-owned company planning a nuclear power station in Essex refused to share the security arrangements for a Chinese nuclear plant with the British authorities, it has been revealed.
Inspectors from the UK nuclear regulator visited the China General Nuclear Power Corporation (CGN) in Shenzhen earlier this year, as part of the four-year approval process for the reactor the company wants to build at Bradwell.
Continue reading...