The scope of potential criminal charges that may be considered include misconduct in office and involuntary manslaughterThe state of Michigan’s inquiry into the Flint water crisis will consider any potential criminal conduct, including involuntary manslaughter, investigators said Tuesday.Michigan attorney general Bill Schuette and a team of investigators appointed last month to examine Flint’s water debacle said they’ve “hit the ground running†in the investigation. Continue reading...
Market Forces report finds members of 15 Australian super funds lost an average of $1,109 per member in fossil fuel investments over two yearsMany Australians are losing thousands of dollars a year from their retirement savings because their super funds continue to invest in fossil fuel companies, according to a new report.Related: Fossil fuel investments damaging Australians’ retirement savings, research shows Continue reading...
Female shark that has had no contact with males for more than two years produces two fertile eggsA female shark that has had no contact with males of its species for more than two years is due to give birth to two babies. The white-spotted bamboo shark arrived at Great Yarmouth Sea Life Centre in 2013, having been evacuated from the badly flooded sister centre in Hunstanton, also in Norfolk.She has been the only member of her species at the centre in that time and has had no contact with male sharks. But experts at the centre have revealed that she has produced two fertile eggs, which are due to hatch in nine months’ time. Continue reading...
How do we finance the climate adaption needed to stop global temperatures rising above 1.5 degrees? Our panel of experts share their thoughtsHundreds of billions of dollars could be made available for climate finance by placing a small tax on financial transactions such as the trading of stocks and bonds. There’s a big Robin Hood Tax movement behind this, with a group of European countries already on the cusp of establishing the world’s first regional financial transaction tax. Karen Orenstein, senior analyst, Friends of the Earth US, Washington DC, USA @KarenOrenstein @foe_us Continue reading...
by Reuters in San Antonio de los Baños on (#13DMZ)
When the Caribbean state was no longer able to afford pesticides – which have been linked with declining bee populations – it made a virtue out of a necessityLong known for its cigars and rum, Cuba has added organic honey to its list of key agricultural exports, creating a buzz among farmers as pesticide use has been linked to declining bee populations elsewhere.Related: Cuba: a country on the brink of change – in pictures Continue reading...
Summit, an invite-only ideas conference, is setting up a permanent home on a mountain in Utah. But can it avoid being just another meet-up for Silicon Valley tech bros?Elliot Bisnow, the co-founder of Summit – which he calls an events community for people who are “passionate and nice and interested in doing something impactful†– said he never thought he’d be living on a mountain in Utah, but in a lot of ways, he’s coming back to his roots.The idea for Summit began there, in 2008. Bisnow had started a real estate business in college, but after graduation he was feeling isolated. So he called up 19 of the entrepreneurs who impressed him most, like Blake Mycoskie from Toms, and Ricky Van Veen, who founded College Humor, and asked if they’d want to come skiing with him. “I cold called them and said, ‘I have a startup I think it would be interesting to get a group of interesting people together. I’m renting this big house at Alta, Utah.’†Continue reading...
Urgent trade embargo on live Asian species is needed to prevent a virulent disease from wiping out European newts and salamander populationsA skin-eating fungus could eradicate newts and salamanders from large tracts of Europe by 2020 unless a ban on live imports of Asian species is urgently introduced, a group of scientists and NGOs has warned.The US embargoed 201 species last month in a crackdown on the virulent Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans or “Bsal†fungus, which is thought to originate in Asia. Continue reading...
No further sightings of possible whale in trouble off north Norfolk coast following reports this morningCoastguard teams have stood down after no further sightings of a possible whale in trouble off the UK’s east coast.A member of the Mundesley coastguard rescue team reported a potential sighting at 10.15am on Tuesday of a whale around 400 yards off the coast of the Norfolk village. Continue reading...
In the first post of a short series, I take a look at the European eel fishery, which is beset by illegal trade as European Eel becomes a prized commodity in AsiaThis year the banks of France’s great rivers have become the stage for an intensifying conflict, cued by the arrival of millions of baby European Eels migrating from the North Atlantic into Europe’s rivers. Alongside the legitimate eel fishing season, which runs from November to March each year, a thriving black market usurps young eels from European waters, transporting tonnes of them, live, to Asia annually. This year the issue has reached a head, as those illegal forces clash with conservationists who are trying to draw attention to the eels’ fate—especially along the waterways of France.The European Eel species (Anguilla anguilla) is a centuries-old staple in European cuisine, but in the last 45 years, it’s undergone estimated declines of 90-95 percent that make it a critically endangered species today. “We’re actually dealing with a species on the very edge of survival,†says Andrew Kerr, chairman of the Sustainable Eel Group (SEG), an organisation working to aid the recovery of European Eel across its habitat. Continue reading...
While some believe the palm oil certifier is taking a significant step forward, others fear the creation of a system that excludes smaller companiesThe world’s leading body for the certification of sustainable palm oil has created new standards to tackle deforestation, human rights violations and greenhouse gas emissions on certified plantations.The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) published the RSPO Next standards on 9 February following rising pressure from industry and campaigners who claim that certified firms are still participating in deforestation, land-grabbing and the destruction of biodiversity, such as the loss of habitat for orangutans. Continue reading...
US snowstorms, Tasmanian bushfires and Arabian plankton blooms were among the images captured by European Space Agency and Nasa satellites last monthIn orbit around the Earth on board the International Space Station, Nasa astronaut Scott Kelly captured this blue water image and tweeted it out with this message: “ A splash of #EarthArt over the #Bahamas! #YearInSpace.†Continue reading...
Ordinary merchant ships will not be able to take an ice-free shortcut from China to Europe until at least 2040, report predictsIt will be decades before big cargo ships link China and northern Europe by taking a shortcut through the Arctic Ocean, a report predicts.
Longest-running study to date analyses long-term mortality risks of Britons exposed to historic particulate pollutionAir pollution raises the risk of death for many decades after exposure, according to the longest-running study to date.The analysis of 368,000 British people over 38 years also showed that those living in the most polluted places have a 14% higher risk of dying than those in the least polluted areas. Those exposed to particulate air pollution were more likely to die from respiratory problems, like pneumonia, emphysema and bronchitis, and also from cardiovascular problems, like heart attacks. Continue reading...
Burton Mill, West Sussex I make my way through the woodland to the willows and alder that edge the main pondThe morning rain has left the already-soaked footpaths even wetter – my boots sink deep into the mud. But the clouds have cleared and the sun is shining for the last hours of the day. The weak whistles of flocks of long-tailed tits carry through the thin silver birches, as the little birds flick from one tree to the next.I make my way through the woodland to the willows and alder that edge the main pond. Jet-black coots, with their white beaks and foreheads glistening in the sunshine, dive for weed or emit their harsh, percussive calls. One of them noisily chases a grey-backed pochard and then a black and white tufted duck which have both strayed into its path. Continue reading...
More than NZ$1.4m raised so far to protect stretch of coastline in Abel Tasman national park from becoming out of bounds to the publicA pristine slice of New Zealand coastline may soon be safe in public hands if “head dreamer†Duane Major gets his wish and crowdfunds the NZ$2m (£900,000) needed to buy it.Just before Christmas a golden stretch of beach in Abel Tasman national park came up for sale for NZ$2m. If bought privately, public access to the turquoise waters and unspoilt native bush could have been restricted. Continue reading...
International Shark Attack File notes 98 unprovoked shark attacks – including six fatalities – with US, Australia and South Africa witnessing highest numbersSharks attacked people 98 times in 2015, a spike in unprovoked attacks that set a new record as human populations rise, researchers found in an annual global tally released on Monday.
Cuts to the CSIRO’s climate and land and water research will make finding solutions – and making milk Australian families can afford – ever more difficult“… in the last decade we’ve definitively answered the question that the world’s climate is changing. What keeps me up and night and I think what keeps most of the country up at night is what are we going to do about it? How are we going to mitigate it?†– CSIRO chief executive Larry Marshall, ABC’s 7.30, February 4Perversely, I’m pleased CSIRO chief Larry Marshall is lying in bed worrying about how to mitigate the effects of climate change. I’m only glad he’s not a farmer like me, because I doubt he’d cope.
Rodents are threatening the unique natural environment of Australia’s sparsely populated Lord Howe Island. But a plan to eradicate the pests by dropping 42 tonnes of poisoned cereal is splitting the close-knit community in halfDescribed by the UN as “an area of spectacular and scenic landscapesâ€, Lord Howe Island is nothing if not dramatic. Formed from an inferno of underwater volcanoes more than six million years ago, the 10km long crescent-shaped island sits in a bath of turquoise water, exactly where the warm East Australian Current meets the icy waters of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current.Those ancient lava flows left a rugged landscape with steep cliffs, which drop off into an ocean which supports the world’s most southerly coral reef. Between those cliffs and the reef lies a calm blue lagoon that laps against a yellow-sand beach. Continue reading...
International Civil Aviation Organisation plan of 4% fuel reduction of new aircraft starting in 2028 not enough to halt emissions, environmental groups sayGovernments proposed for the first time on Monday to reduce climate pollution from airplanes, plugging one of the biggest loopholes in last December’s landmark Paris agreement.
Scientists tell ABC’s Four Corners that nets are not effective barriers and that a bigger shark population does not increase attacksThe shark nets used at most beaches might make you feel safer, but they do nothing to reduce your chance of being attacked, according to a new analysis of data.The data, compiled over half a century by Laurie Laurenson from Deakin University, was presented on ABC’s Four Corners program on Monday night. Continue reading...
Boy, five, and girl, seven, hit by falling wall in Worcestershire, with Mike Reid, 54, not seen since being called out near PenzanceTwo children have been seriously hurt and an RSPCA inspector is missing after Storm Imogen battered the south of England with hurricane-force winds of almost 100mph and torrential rain, while more than 13,000 homes were left without power across the UK and Ireland. Continue reading...
While I am sorry to see the photo archive move to London (Letters, 6 February) I find it ironic that Bradford council is happy to do to Ilkley what London does to it. It has closed our Manor House Museum, taken the exhibits to Bradford and proposes selling the building, which was originally bequeathed to the people of Ilkley, presumably keeping the proceeds. They too can be accused of “metropolitan cultural fascismâ€.
Engie to shut Staffordshire power station this summer, putting 150 jobs in doubt and raising fresh concern over outagesThe government has issued a fresh denial that the UK is at risk of blackouts after one of the country’s biggest coal power stations announced plans to close.The French company Engie said it would shut its Rugeley power station in the summer, putting 150 jobs in doubt and affecting 190 contractors. Continue reading...
Scotland Yard is looking at using eagles to take down unmanned flying objects – yet another argument for preserving all species, in case they might prove useful laterIf we ever needed persuading that animals are smarter than technology, we should take heed of the drone-fighting eagles. Scotland Yard is examining the deployment of bald eagles by Dutch police after a private security firm demonstrated how the mighty birds can deftly pluck a drone out of the sky.The drone featured in the video I’ve watched is a pretty feeble-looking specimen. The eagle easily avoids the blades and takes its plastic prey away for a mauling. Dutch police say this solution is less hazardous than shooting down drones that deliver drugs to prisons or menace planes (UK authorities recorded 30 near misses with aircraft in 2015). Continue reading...
Research warns of the long timescale of climate change impacts unless urgent action is taken to cut emissions drasticallyHuge sea-level rises caused by climate change will last far longer than the entire history of human civilisation to date, according to new research, unless the brief window of opportunity of the next few decades is used to cut carbon emissions drastically.Even if global warming is capped at governments’ target of 2C - which is already seen as difficult - 20% of the world’s population will eventually have to migrate away from coasts swamped by rising oceans. Cities including New York, London, Rio de Janeiro, Cairo, Calcutta, Jakarta and Shanghai would all be submerged. Continue reading...
Sea water in Croyde is whipped up into foam by the violent winds of Storm Imogen and deposited over parts of the North Devon village. Several seafront properties are engulfed by the foam. Storm Imogen has been battering Britain with winds of nearly 100mph and waves as high as 19.1m off some coastlines.Live updatesWatch: massive waves hit Welsh seafront homes Continue reading...
by Gareth Simkins for ENDS, part of the Guardian Envi on (#139Q8)
Greenpeace petition calling for UK to follow US and ban use of microbeads in cosmetics has collected more than 140,000 signatures, reports ENDSThe UK government is being urged to ban the use of plastic microbeads in cosmetics.More than 140,000 people have backed a petition launched by Greenpeace UK just three weeks ago, saying the UK should follow the US in forbidding the use of “these wholly unnecessary bits of plasticâ€.
It’s a perverse system that punishes peaceful activists while rewarding those who caused the banks to fail - economic sins that cost millions more than the inconvenience of a group of climate campaignersWith rare certainty we now know in advance the actual day on which an important climate threshold will be passed. It’s not a new temperature rise, or the calving of another Manhattan-sized chunk of glacial ice in Greenland, but the likely jailing on 24 February of 13 climate campaigners who staged a protest against aviation expansion at Heathrow airport.
World’s largest furniture retailer is keen to trumpet its green credentials but is no longer selling solar after drastic cuts to government subsidies
City links: An ambitious proposal to protect the Japanese capital, the rise of night mayors and a greener Madrid all feature in this week’s roundup of the best city stories from around the webThis week’s collection of urban gems takes us all the way from Tokyo to Porto Alegre via Amsterdam and Copenhagen – and ends with a first-hand experience of commuting. We’d love to hear your responses to these stories, and any others you’ve read recently: share your thoughts in the comments below. Continue reading...
Big cat wanders into grounds of school in Bangalore before being shot with tranquilliser dartFive people have been injured during an attempt to capture a leopard that wandered into a school in southern India, a wildlife official has said.Photos of the incident in Bangalore show the animal prowling around the closed school and trying to maul forestry officials as well as a wildlife activist and others who came too close.
Huge waves crash into houses on the Aberystwyth promenade on Monday, hard enough to reach the second floor windows. The Environment Agency issued 62 flood warnings early in the morning and suggested immediate action in the south-west and south-east of England and Wales as Storm Imogen strikes BritainMain image: Waves crash over the sea wall at Porthcawl in Wales as winds of nearly 100mph batter Britain – Joe Giddens/PA WireLive updatesWatch: Storm Imogen whips sea into foam and blows it over Croyde Continue reading...
133 individuals who were monitored by undercover police are pressing for the publication of the fake names of the spies and the groups they infiltratedMore than a hundred individuals who will play a key role in the public inquiry into undercover policing have called for a list of police spies to be disclosed.The 133 individuals are also calling for a list of political groups that were infiltrated by the police spies to be made public. Continue reading...
Actor Mark Ruffalo calls on the UK prime minister to abandon his push on fracking and leave fossil fuels in the ground. A prominent opponent of fracking in the US, Oscar-nominated Ruffalo addresses David Cameron in a video message, telling him he is making an enormous ‘legacy mistake’ in supporting the controversial process of extracting gas by hydraulic fracturing. Ruffalo makes his comments in an interview with Friends of the Earth Continue reading...
Europe and US try to bridge differences to come up with the world’s first carbon dioxide emissions standards for aircraftEurope and the United States tried to bridge differences over emissions standards for aircraft on Sunday as global aviation leaders prepared to adopt new rules that could affect Boeing Co and Airbus Group’s production of the largest jetliners and freighters.Proposals being debated in Montreal by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), the United Nations’ aviation agency, would force makers of the world’s largest passenger jets to upgrade or stop producing certain models as early as 2023, according to sources close to the negotiations and documents seen by Reuters. Continue reading...
Survivors continue to be found in Tainan City following the 6.4 magnitude earthquake that hit southern Taiwan on Saturday. A 14-year-old girl was rescued on Sunday and man in his 40s on Monday. The girl, buried by a bed on the sixth floor of a toppled building, was taken to hospital, but her mother has not yet been found. The man was also taken to hospital but his condition is unknown. The official death toll is 38, with more than 100 people still missing. Photograph: Xinhua/Barcroft MediaRead: two survivors pulled from rubble after more than 48 hoursPhotos: earthquake in southern Taiwan – in picturesWatch: drone shows damage caused by Taiwan earthquake Continue reading...
Chief executive Larry Marshall is right that we need to invest in adaptation, but this requires a proper understanding of how the climate will changeThe decision to gut Australia’s government science agency of climate research may seem hard to fathom. But let’s pause from the hyperventilation of the past week and ask whether there is an underlying logic.Could the shift from studying how climate changes, to studying ways of mitigating and adapting to climate change, be a good thing? Continue reading...
Despite the lack of oxygen and health risks, high-altitude locations are home to at least 140 million people around the world. From Bolivia’s El Alto to Lhasa in Tibet, what’s urban life like at such dizzying elevations?At 3,640 metres above sea level, the city of La Paz sits in a canyon resembling something of a bowl within the Bolivian altiplano – a high altitude, windswept plain that dominates the southern and western territory of the country. It’s the world’s highest administrative capital, yet more of the metropolitan population lives in the even higher city of El Alto at 4,150 metres, on the rim of the canyon.El Alto was uninhabited at the start of the 20th century, but as land became more expensive in neighbouring La Paz, the city grew: for the last 50 years, new development has spiralled out of control into a chaotic mix of winding streets through which water and sewer services struggle to extend. Continue reading...
He’s drummed with Spiritualized and Julian Cope. Now Kev Bales has joined up with Wolfgang Buttress and a beehive – to create a transcendental drone symphony“We had a joke in the studio that they were the best band members we’ve ever had,†laughs Kev Bales when describing the recording of Be’s One album. Bales may have spent the last 30 years drumming with the likes of Spiritualized, Soulsavers and Julian Cope, but the musicians he’s referring to here are a different kind of buzz band altogether: to be precise, they’re 40,000 bees, and their activity forms the basis of One, a transcendental drone symphony between man and bee that is surely one of the year’s most beguiling offerings.To understand where it all came from requires a bit of backstory. So let’s begin at the Expo 2015 exhibition in Milan, where Nottingham-based artist Wolfgang Buttress has been chosen to represent the UK and build a pavilion under the theme “feeding the planetâ€. He’s decided to base his structure around the honeybee – responsible for 30% of the food we eat, yet threatened by pesticides and a lack of biodiversity – and sets to work constructing The Hive, a 50-tonne, 17-metre-high lattice structure for people to wander around. It’s an impressive concept, but Buttress feels that, to truly convey the honeybee’s plight, it needs something more.
The agency, which the government is still seeking to abolish, will fund up to 1,000 homes for low-income earnersThe Turnbull government will announce $250m in loans for energy-efficient public housing on Tuesday, funded by an agency it is still seeking to abolish.
Andrew Dyer says 50% of complaints relate to seven future facilities and include noise, economic and health fearsApproximately half of all complaints made to Australia’s windfarm commissioner relate to turbines that have not yet been built, the man tasked with the job has said.Andrew Dyer was appointed as the country’s first windfarm commissioner in October and started in the role the following month. Since November he has received complaints relating to 12 wind farms, affecting 42 residents. Continue reading...
Actor records video message to the UK prime minister accusing him of going back on his word by failing to respect public opposition to frackingDavid Cameron is making an enormous “legacy mistake†by going all-out for fracking in the UK, the actor and environmental activist Mark Ruffalo has warned.The actor, who is famous for his role as the Hulk in the Avenger films and who stars in Spotlight about the Boston Globe’s investigation into Catholic child abuse, is a prominent anti-fracking campaigner who lobbied successfully for a ban on the controversial technology in New York. Continue reading...
Rydal, Lake District The trees watch stiffly, the path a tunnel through their motionless squabble of branches, bare as picked bones. Coffins passed this way, for burial in consecrated ground in Grasmere.Winter on a fellside path, just a path between here and there. But there seems to be a disagreement in terms with this path, and those like it: the method of conveyance, or the thing being conveyed. Coffin Trail, or Corpse Road.Dread names spread branch-like from these old pathways, through folklore and onto maps. Church ways, bier paths, spirit lines, ghost walks. They eulogise an old passage: along corpse roads, the living carried the dead. Continue reading...
Smaller sustainable energy systems are a better option than trying to maintain ageing Australian energy infrastructure, say expertsOn 7 February, Australia solemnly marked the anniversary of an electrical fault.It was on this date in 2009 that Melbourne endured its hottest conditions on record – a sweltering 46.4C. Continue reading...
Oscar-nominated Hollywood actor tells PM he is making a ‘legacy mistake’ by supporting shale gas industryOscar-nominated actor Mark Ruffalo has called on David Cameron to abandon fracking and leave fossil fuels in the ground.A prominent opponent of fracking in the US, Ruffalo told the prime minister he was making “a legacy mistake†in supporting the controversial process of extracting gas by hydraulic fracturing. Continue reading...
Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 12 February 1916The hoar frosts which came with the new moon do not appear to have been too unkind to the young corn on the chalk uplands of our southern border, where many acres of wheat are green. If the early-sown crops are forward, the frost, on the other hand, has not been exceptionally severe; when the rime has been drawn up by the Sun you see beads on the little spears, and there is no sign of withering at their sharp ends. They stand a change of weather better than some of the early shrubs in the farm garden. The wild currant (Mezereon) has curled a little, the tassels contract on the hazel, and yet an hour of sunshine puts everything in tune again.The blackbird has finished her nest near the top of the ditch bank in a hollow that looks like a disused rabbit-hole overgrown with coarse grass, the remains of last autumn’s growth, and she has begun to lay. The foundation of a thrush’s nest is fixed in the crook of a thorn, quite open, as if the mistaken bird thought that the quicks would bud and leaf enough to hide it before the young brood extend their yellow throats, always clamouring for more and yet more food. Or, perhaps, thrushes, like some other birds, do not care to make a secret of these matters any more than the Dorkings in the farmyard, where a couple of hens are this evening moving restlessly about making those continual odd cawing noises which inform you that the “broody†time is on them. The housewife shakes her head; eggs are so useful that she does not want sitting hens for a week or two yet. Out on the common the furze is in bloom, and a couple of finches are flitting about the prickly tops. They, too, will soon bring new life here. Continue reading...
In mid-January 2016 a three-day smog covered London, Nottingham, Leicester and Birmingham. January used to be a peak month for pea-souper smogs. Between 1952 and 1962 these killed nearly 15,000 Londoners and many people in other cities including Glasgow and Manchester. These days our winter smogs are full of nitrogen dioxide and particles from diesel exhaust rather than smoke from coal.Madrid is the latest European capital to introduce emergency measures to control pollution episodes. If Madrid’s new laws applied in London we would have had public health warnings on 19 January, lower speed limits and parking restrictions on 20 January followed by a ban on even-number-plate cars in central areas on 21 January. Continue reading...
While some praise the candidate’s visit for bringing attention to the city as its water crisis continues, others see a candidate plying a cause ‘just to get votes’Hillary Clinton has made every effort to make Flint her own. The water crisis afflicting this predominantly black Michigan city – ignored by Washington politicians for years – has become another battlefield in a progressive war between Clinton and Bernie Sanders. Race, class and the environment matter again in an issues-based, neck-and-neck race for the Democratic presidential nomination.
