The Guardian
'You helmets, get a life!': Celebrating 25 years of the Dunwich Dynamo
To celebrate the anniversary of the annual 116 mile night ride, here’s how the night unfolded for one distinctly average rider
It was the 25th Dunwich Dynamo this weekend, and the fifth ridden by your correspondent.
Starting from a park in Hackney, the Dynamo is a madcap 116-ish mile dash from London through the night to the sea-covered remains of a medieval town that was once its rival.
Police tactics at fracking protests need urgent review, says MEP
Call for review follows repeated allegations of violence and excessive force by police and security staff at UK sites
Repeated allegations of excessive force by police and security staff against protesters at oil and gas fracking sites across the country have led to a call for an urgent review of police tactics.
Lancashire police are investigating an allegation of assault by a security official at the Cuadrilla site at Preston New Road in Lancashire. At other protest sites – including Surrey and Derbyshire – demonstrators have made complaints about the alleged heavy-handedness of police officers.
Continue reading...Fido's family tree – in pictures
A new series on Sky 1 traces the ancestry and evolution of the 500 million domesticated dogs worldwide, with biologist Patrick Aryee introducing some of the 36 wild species. Dogs: An Amazing Animal Family airs on Thursdays from 13 to 27 July.
All photographs: Offspring Films
Continue reading...Conservatives are again denying the very existence of global warming | Dana Nuccitelli
The best efforts to undermine the established climate science behind the Endangerment Finding are pathetically bad
As we well know, climate myths are like zombies that never seem to die. It’s only a matter of time before they rise from the dead and threaten to eat our brains. And so here we go again – American conservatives are denying the very existence of global warming.
Continue reading...Adani's Carmichael's short operating plan avoids expected legal obligation of $1bn environment bond
Plan details no mining or construction or resulting land disturbance, which would trigger government demand for rehabilitation assurance
Adani has kept an operating plan for its unfunded Queensland mine to just six months, postponing an expected legal obligation to provide a billion-dollar rehabilitation bond before financial backing emerges.
The miner has provided the state government with a plan that covers only up to the end of 2017, which falls before its deadline for securing US$2.5bn in financial backing to execute the first phase of Australia’s largest proposed coal project.
Continue reading...Gorgeous goats – in pictures
Meet Ben, Bella, Sherlock and Sydney – the elegant goats turned into portraits by Kevin Horan. As the American photographer explains, he just treated them ‘like customers in a small-town photo studio’
Continue reading...Between two shires – a world of difference
Moonshine Gap, Cambridgeshire I watch a bird, listen to its dainty movements, then walk over into Northamptonshire, into the wood and signs of rural mischief
Moonshine Gap: what does that name say? When I saw it on the map it said something probably over-romantic, definitely nefarious, the sort of feature found in literature of the Kentucky backwoods. Or older, when the transit of and sightlines to stellar objects were watched, noted and sometimes immortalised. Seemed a stretch for this place.
Gap is like col or pass, a place where the ground gives to allow a way between this place and that. All are mountain words, so a strange find in this flat place. This “gap” marks a straddle between Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire, so maybe that’s why. It’s not new: there it is on the 1889 map, attached to a wedge of wood amid crackle-glaze fields.
Continue reading...Impressionist view of midsummer flowers: Country diary 100 years ago
Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 12 July 1917
Along the grassy cuttings of the railway line between Carlisle and Kilmarnock the midsummer flowers are rampant. One would like to have a free pass to investigate the flora of railway cuttings. Many are the tales one hears of the uncommon plants which turn up in such situations, but, in whirling past, one can get only an impressionist view. To-day the prevailing colour was a brilliant and beautiful lilac-blue, that of the tufted vetch (Vicia cracca) whose long-spikes of pea-shaped flowers made “little heavens” for many miles. In some places they had begun to mow the grass along the cuttings, and the farmers will be glad of this vetch, which makes a much-prized sweet food for cattle.
Related: How to access the Guardian and Observer digital archive
Continue reading...The downside of summer sunshine
The June heatwave brought dangerously high ozone levels and caused serious summer smog
The hottest June day in the UK since 1976 caused widespread summertime smog across southern England and the Midlands. Sevenoaks in Kent and Lullington Heath, East Sussex, measured the greatest ozone level for 11 years; reaching eight on the UK government’s ten-point scale for the first time. The winds then turned westerly and carried our polluted air eastwards to create problems over Germany.
Ozone can take days to form in the atmosphere. It therefore spreads across very wide areas. To reduce the worst impacts, Paris once again banned the oldest vehicles from its roads and, in a targeted approach, restrictions were placed on industries that emit volatile hydrocarbons that contribute to ozone formation. In a re-run of the 2003 heatwave, smoke from the tragic forest fires in Portugal spread over France and reached the UK during the hot weather.
Continue reading...Heathrow hotel operator drafts £6.7bn cheaper third runway plan
Surinder Arora publishes ‘cheaper and less disruptive’ plan to expand airport including shifting new runway away from M25 and reducing site area by 25%
A wealthy hotel operator has submitted plans for a third runway at Heathrow which he claims would be £6.7bn cheaper than the airport’s current scheme.
Surinder Arora, founder and chairman of the Arora Group, said there were “cheaper and better ways” to expand Britain’s biggest airport in proposals sent to the government as part of a public consultation.
Continue reading...Badger cull could see boom in foxes, stoats and weasels
It is one of the more neglected dimensions of the badger cull, but one that could reignite the controversy surrounding the attempt to control the spread of bovine tuberculosis.
Conservationists have long claimed that eliminating badgers from certain areas is likely to trigger an increase in other predators, such as foxes, leading to serious consequences for species and habitats. But the government has refused to publish data showing what impact the cull is having on local ecosystems for fear that the results will be used by animal rights activists to identify the farmers and landowners carrying out the extermination.
Continue reading...Angela Merkel leads G20 split with Trump over Paris agreement – video
German chancellor Angela Merkel speaks to the press at the end of the G20 summit in Hamburg on Saturday and addresses the clear split between the positions of the US and the remaining 19 nations over climate change in the summit’s joint statement notes
Continue reading...Seven right whales found dead in 'devastating' blow to endangered animal
Carcasses found off Canada in recent weeks in what may be biggest single die-off of one of world’s most endangered whale species, expert says
Seven North Atlantic right whales have been found floating lifelessly in the Gulf of St Lawrence, off Canada, in recent weeks, in what is being described as a “catastrophic” blow to one of the world’s most endangered whales.
The first whale carcass was reported in early June. Within a month, another six reports came in, leaving marine biologists in the region reeling.
Continue reading...Electric car revolution: calculating the cost of green motoring
More battery-powered vehicles would mean cleaner air and quieter streets – but also a drain on the National Grid and less fuel duty to the Treasury
Streets will be quieter, the air will be cleaner, people will spend less time at petrol stations and car factories might even return to Britain’s shores if the country switches to electric cars in a dramatic, widespread fashion.
But widespread adoption of battery-powered vehicles would not be without challenges too. A large-scale switchover to electric cars could create problems for power grids, could mean roads lined with charging poles and it could also leave a big hole in public coffers as fuel duty dries up.
Continue reading...Sassy and sociable, the swifts are back in town
Kendal, Lake District Every year they fly 5,000 miles to breed in the exact same crack or crevice in the exact same building
In their brief sojourn here, swifts wreak high-pitched havoc – they are all daredevil velocity and sassy sociability. Since Roman times at least, these urban Apodidae have exploited humankind’s structures. They are nest site faithful, returning every year to breed in the exact same crack or crevice in the exact same building after their 5,000-mile migration from Africa.
But according to the RSPB, over a third of the UK’s swifts have been lost in 22 years, in no small part because of habitat loss. Re-roofing or re-pointing old stone buildings can unwittingly lock swifts out; they may return from their long-haul trip to find their homes boarded up and, for that season at least, breeding will not take place.
Continue reading...Falling from the sky: the providence petrels of Lord Howe Island – video
Lord Howe Island is the nesting site for hundreds of thousands of providence petrels (Pterodroma solandri). The birds used to be common on Norfolk Island, but were eaten to extinction by starving convicts in the early days of settlement. Although fast and graceful in flight, providence petrels spend most of their lives at sea and are clumsy on land. They also have no fear of humans. If they hear a call they will land and investigate, making them easy prey for a hungry convict
• Birds, sweat and fears on Lord Howe Island’s grand Seven Peaks Walk
Continue reading...Plastic free July: cutting down single use plastics is easier than it seems
Plastic seems inescapable but there are easy ways like quitting junk food, carrying your own cutlery and using up leftovers that will make a difference
By now, we all know the horrors of plastic. The way it hangs around without biodegrading for centuries, the way it’s clogging the stomachs of birds, how it creates islands in the ocean for marine life to get stuck in, how it pollutes our riverways and motorways as non-biodegradable rubbish.
Yet it’s everywhere. If you want a takeaway coffee, there’s plastic lining in about 99% of disposable cups. If you want a sandwich at a deli, it’s more than likely going to be wrapped in plastic. Even when you’re doing your very best to be healthy, a two litre milk comes in a plastic container and most major supermarkets produce is wrapped or bagged in plastic.
Continue reading...Hedgehogs at risk from food scarcity, habitat loss and badgers
Experts say hedgehogs face crisis in towns and countryside, as RSPB records fewer sightings of the animals for third year in a row
During the day they curl up in nests of shredded paper but when night falls those that are well enough scurry and snuffle around the old fish boxes that serve as their temporary homes.
These hedgehogs at the RSPCA’s West Hatch animal centre in Somerset have had a tough time of it. Some have tangled with dogs, strimmers, bonfires, fruit netting or vehicles; others have been brought in as tiny unseeing hoglets, having lost their parents.
Continue reading...Stephen Tindale obituary
The environmentalist Stephen Tindale, who has died aged 54, was an influential backroom figure in the Labour party who became executive director of Greenpeace UK. His brand of environmentalism was driven by his socialist principles. He was international in outlook, pragmatic about what could be achieved politically, and technologically optimistic. He was successful as a leader, first in government and then outside it.
Heading Greenpeace from 2001 until 2006 was Stephen’s most public-facing role, at a time when the organisation was at its noisiest. In 2005 he was arrested during direct action at Range Rover’s SUV plant in Solihull. Greenpeace planted a flag subverting the company’s logo and proclaiming “Land Rover: Climate Criminals”. Stephen was proud of this act of civil disobedience and a framed image of his arrest adorned his wall.
Continue reading...Rewilding, climate scepticism and G20 – green news roundup
The week’s top environment news stories and green events. If you are not already receiving this roundup, sign up here to get the briefing delivered to your inbox
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