Climate shifts ‘not to blame’ for African civil wars
Climate change is not responsible for civil wars in Africa, a study suggests. It challenges previous assumptions that environmental disasters, such as drought and prolonged heat waves, had played a part in triggering unrest. Instead, it says, traditional factors - such as poverty and social tensions - were often the main factors behind the outbreak [...]
UN calls special meeting to address food shortages amid predictions of riots
Two years after the last food crisis, when prices surged by nearly 15% in the UK, food inflation is back. Soaring global food prices have prompted City and food industry experts to warn that the cost of the weekly shop is set to rise by up to 10% in the coming months. As in 2008, [...]
Rising wheat prices raise fears over UK commitment to biofuels
The soaring price of wheat has raised questions about the UK’s commitment to biofuels as it attempts to wean itself from its dependence on oil. A network of biorefineries that convert wheat and other crops into bioethanol that can then be blended with petrol are being developed as the UK looks to meet its EU [...]
Jakarta ‘cannot accommodate’ any more people
In a efforts to control the seasonal influx of newcomers to the capital, Jakarta Governor Fauzi Bowo recently urged the public not to bring friends or relatives back with them after the Idul Fitri exodus. “In Tambora there are so many people that you trip over children when you walk,” Fauzi said as quoted by [...]
Now meat price surge raises fear of food inflation
Freakish weather conditions and soaring demand from China, Brazil and other fast-emerging economies have pushed meat prices around the world to a 20-year high. International food prices have risen to their highest in two years, shooting up five per cent between July and August. Wheat is up by more than 50 per cent since May. [...]
UK biofuels ‘falling short’ on environmental standards
The Renewable Fuels Agency says it is disappointed that the vast majority of biofuels sold on UK forecourts do not conform to environmental standards. The body said fuel suppliers were meeting legally binding volume targets but some were falling “well short” on achieving voluntary green standards. But since biofuels have had to be mixed into [...]
Friends of the Earth urges end to ‘land grab’ for biofuels
Photograph: Juan Carlos Ulate/Reuters
European Union countries must drop their biofuels targets or else risk plunging more Africans into hunger and raising carbon emissions, according to Friends of the Earth (FoE). In a campaign launching today, the charity accuses European companies of land-grabbing throughout Africa to grow biofuel crops that directly compete with food crops. Biofuel companies [...]
UK: Housebuilders to win reduced carbon target for homes
One of the UK’s most radical environmental policies – requiring all new homes from 2016 to be “zero carbon” – is set to be scaled back amid pressure from the housebuilding industry. Builders claim the proposals would be too expensive and impossible to implement for many flats, and would result in a slump in the [...]
China: Rare earth export cuts protect environment
China’s decision to slash export quotas of rare earth elements was a necessary step to protect the country’s environment, commerce minister Chen Deming said following criticism from Japanese officials. “Mass extraction of rare earth will cause great damage to the environment and that’s why China has tightened controls over rare earth production, exploration and trade,” [...]
Good Companies Guide: easing the planet’s growing pains will help business to profit
A few diehards in the City still think sustainability is just for sandal-wearers. But how we deal with the major ecological and social challenges facing the world will have enormous implications for the global economy and for the prospects of the UK’s leading companies. It will also have an impact on the pension savings and [...]
Congo rapes: Scramble for Africa
Cassiterite, wolframite, coltan: they might be the spoiled offspring of celebrity parents, or characters from an unfamiliar fairytale. The truth is much more prosaic. They are the minerals on which laptops and mobiles and even the tin of tomatoes in the cupboard depend. Cassiterite in the main component of tin oxide. Wolframite is a source [...]
UN: Food Insecurity in Kyrgyzstan to Grow Worse
Two youths, ethnic Russian Maxim, 9, and Kyrgyz Sumat, 10, left, walk through debris as they search for food in the ransacked market in Osh, southern Kyrgyzstan. Photo: AP
The United Nations says more than one-quarter of the households in Kyrgyzstan do not have enough food, and that the problem is expected to get worse in [...]
Deluges after the deluge
The Pakistani crisis is already one of the very first order. Some 20 million people have been left homeless, along a path of destruction of more than 600 miles. Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani has even compared the challenges the country now faces to those during the 1947 partition of the subcontinent in which around [...]
The ten-day traffic jam driving China mad
In a list of the top places to spend the summer, a motorway just outside Beijing beneath a pall of smog and battered by ferocious heat would probably not feature. But some have little choice. For five days, thousands of Chinese motorists have been stuck in the world’s worst traffic jam that stretches for 60 [...]
Fuel of the future: The new power generation
The Royal Bank of Scotland might at first seem an unusual focus for climate change activists’ ire. But since last Thursday, members of Climate Camp have been campaigning outside their headquarters in Edinburgh. The reason? They are protesting over the huge loans the bank has provided to oil companies, oil being one of the biggest [...]
We’ve gone into the ecological red
Climate scientists believe extreme weather events like the recent flooding in Pakistan will become more frequent. Photograph: Mohammad Sajjad/AP
At the weekend, Saturday 21 August to be precise, the world as a whole went into “ecological debt”. That means in effect that from now until the end of the year, humanity will be consuming more natural [...]
Britain prepares for mackerel war with Iceland and Faroe Islands
Photograph: H Taillard/Corbis
It’s summer, and off the coast of Britain anglers are enjoying a blue-grey abundance of mackerel. Barbecued, smoked, or baked in cider, this firm favourite provides a seasonal guilt-free treat, certified as sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC). But in a dispute echoing the cod wars of the 1970s, Britain and the [...]
Peak oil alarm revealed by secret official talks
Photo: Tatan Syuflana/AP
Speculation that government ministers are far more concerned about a future supply crunch than they have admitted has been fuelled by the revelation that they are canvassing views from industry and the scientific community about “peak oil”. The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) is also refusing to hand over policy documents [...]
Resource wars: the global crisis behind a hostile takeover battle
BHP Billiton’s £28bn hostile bid for Canada’s Potash Corporation sets the scene for one of mining’s biggest takeover battles. But this is more than a clash between multinationals intent on self-aggrandisement.
Certainly, the usual arguments are wheeled out by the predator about diversification, synergies and the prospect of fatter profits, while the target company complains about [...]
Good Riddance to the Population Explosion: Keys to Prevent Unsustainable Growth
Every day, about 350,000 people are born and 150,000 die. Run this loop for a few decades, and the United Nations projects that we’re on track to increase global population by about one-third by 2050.
Most of that growth will happen in the poorest countries on Earth. Despite their poverty, those two billion people will add to [...]
Earth Overshoot Day: a day to forget or a day to remember?
Photo: AFP
How best to communicate the various environmental crises – climate change, loss of biodiversity and habitats, resource depletion, watercourse contamination, to name but a few – facing us today?
It’s an open question aired frequently by environmentalists. Do you repeatedly present to the world the stark future we face if we continue to ignore these [...]
New Report on Population Asks Americans to Start Talking About What Really Matters
When a man and a woman have unprotected sex, babies are quite often the result. Sexual decisions not only impact the lives of those involved, but impact the planet we all share. Currently the world’s population is growing by 80 million people every year. On a planet with finite resources this means we either take [...]
Scottish gold mine turned down at Loch Lomond
Photo: Murdo Macleod for the Guardian
A proposal to build Britain’s only commercial gold mine in Loch Lomond national park has been refused after councillors decided it would “devastate” the park’s outstanding scenery. Buoyed by record gold prices, the developers had hoped to mine up to five tonnes of gold worth around £110m, and a further 20 [...]
Can demography save Afghanistan?
Link to an article by Richard P. Cincotta of the National Intelligence Council:
http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0Bxq-A-AsZDhmYTNmZTU1ZjMtODg1Ny00ODA0LTg2NTMtZmIzZDE3ODIxYjM4&hl=en&authkey=CLDGrJoI&pli=1
Scottish scientists develop whisky biofuel
It gives a whole new meaning to the phrase “one for the road”. Whisky, the spirit that powers the Scottish economy, is being used to develop a new biofuel which could be available at petrol pumps in a few years.
Using samples from the Glenkinchie Distillery in East Lothian, researchers at Edinburgh Napier University have developed [...]
Green machine: Fighting the efficiency fallacies
Which is the more effective way to reduce your household’s carbon footprint – turn off lights and appliances when you are not using them, or switch to more energy efficient devices? Environmental experts say the latter will have a far greater impact on the greenhouse gas emissions that your home is responsible for, but research [...]
UK: Rising price of hay drives rise in theft
The rising price for hay is driving a new crime wave of ‘hay rustling’ leaving farmers with no feed for animals over the winter. Around the country bales have been stolen from the side of the road, barns, outhouses and even from occupied stables. Farmers said the cost of hay has risen from the usual [...]
England’s green and pleasant land may have to change to feed our thirst for fuel
Photo: Guardian
Yesterday Dustin Benton of the Campaign to Protect Rural England criticised the vision for the countryside outlined in [the Centre for Alternative Technology's] Zero Carbon Britain Report. He argues that our proposals would disrupt the familiar look of the countryside. Our vision for the countryside is about creating energy security, rural jobs and tackling climate [...]
Mankind is using up global resources faster than ever
Think tank the New Economics Foundation (NEF) look at how much food, fuel and other resources are consumed by humans every year. They then compare it to how much the world can provide without threatening the ability of important ecosystems like oceans and rainforests to recover. This year the moment we start eating into nature’s [...]
Coal-fired power stations win reprieve
The coalition is watering down a commitment to tough new environmental emissions standards, raising the possibility of dirty coal-fired power stations such as Kingsnorth going ahead. Green groups are aghast that a flagship policy called for in opposition by both Lib Dems and Tories, and which they last year tried to force on the Labour [...]
Stephen Hawking: only space travel can save mankind
The renowned astrophysicist said he fears mankind is in great danger and its future ”must be in space” if it is to survive. In an interview with website Big Think he said threats to the existence of the human race such as the 1963 Cuban missile crisis are likely to increase in the future and [...]
Livestock farmers hit by rising wheat price
Photo: Getty Images
Rising wheat prices are are threatening the trade of livestock farmers, according to Peter Kendall, the president of the National Farmers Union. He says the current record price of wheat is good news for crop farmers but a serious concern for those who feed their animals grain.
Six weeks ago, there was a global [...]
A Referendum on “Big Australia”
With polls showing Australia’s general election too close to call, it’s uncertain whether Labor Party Prime Minister Julia Gillard will keep her job or be replaced by Tony Abbott, leader of the Liberal-National coalition. Either way, it appears one group will lose: immigrants.
For six decades, Australia has had a political consensus in favor of immigration. [...]
Now Britain and Iceland go to war over the mackerel
The European Union could impose trade sanctions against Iceland or stop its ships from entering EU ports in an emerging “mackerel war”. In an echo of the 1970s “Cod War” when British gunboats were sent to ward off Icelandic trawlers in disputed waters, the EU has warned it will take “all necessary measures” to protect [...]
Britain’s migrant squatter shambles
The impact of uncontrolled immigration on the fabric of British life was graphically laid bare yesterday by the sight of the tented communities in Peterborough, Cambs. Dozens of rough-sleeping Eastern European migrants have set up elaborate camps in nature reserves and parks around the city and some have even taken to squatting in homeowners’ garden [...]
Scottish gold mine in doubt
Plans to mine more than £110m worth of gold in the Scottish Highlands have hit a serious setback after planners at Loch Lomond National Park today said the application should be refused. With gold prices soaring, the mining company Scotgold wants to dig out 700kg of gold and 17 tonnes of silver a year over [...]
Hydroelectric dams pose threat to tribal peoples, report warns
Photo: Xan Rice for the Guardian
Giant hydroelectric dams being built or planned in remote areas of Brazil, Ethiopia, Malaysia, Peru and Guyana will devastate tribal communities by forcing people off their land or destroying hunting and fishing grounds, according to a report by Survival International. The first global assessment of the impact of the dams [...]
Madagascar’s forests plundered for rare rosewood
Rosewood traders turn up in villages on the Masoala peninsula with cash and rice. They want local people to help them find precious rosewood trees in the dense forest, and then to haul the heavy logs out. The illegal trade is irresistible to poor communities. Local people used to make money from tourists who came [...]
New battles in the countryside as ramblers take on owners over access
Campaigners say that many of the growing number of disputes are caused by people with “money and prestige” buying property and refusing to recognise established footpaths. They have also accused owners of increasingly exploiting health and safety laws to block routes. In many cases, landowners argue that they must refuse access to protect themselves from [...]
The world’s first really green oil deal
The Tiputini river on the border of Ecuador’s Yasuni National Park, which is threatened by oil drilling. Photo: EPA
The world’s first genuinely green energy deal is about to be sealed. In a plan which could be a blueprint for saving large tracts of the planet from exploitation, a greater value is being put on a [...]
Italy: ‘No choice but to return to nuclear power’
Two decades after a referendum voted to close it down, Italy is planning to re-open its nuclear power industry. It is about to name the sites where eight new power stations are to be built. The government says that it has no choice if it is to cut back on CO2 emissions and provide enough [...]
New gas pipeline prompts fears for Amazon rainforest
The Arara pole, part of the Urucu oilfield, in the Amazon rain forest, 650km southeast of Manaus, Brazil. Photograph: Antonio Scorza/AFP
A gas pipeline cutting through 660km of Amazon rainforest will deliver cheaper, cleaner energy to a sprawling industrial city buried in the heart of the jungle. But environmentalists fear the pipe is simply a bridgehead towards [...]
US Environmental Protection Agency rejects challenges to labelling carbon emissions a pollutant
US climate sceptic lobbyists’ attempts to stop greenhouse gas emissions from being labelled as a pollutant were last week rejected by The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Climater sceptics and coal lobby groups, including the Peabody Energy Company, had challenged the EPA’s ruling from December 2009 that climate change caused by GHG emissions was a [...]
US food waste worth more than offshore drilling
More energy is wasted in the perfectly edible food discarded by people in the US each year than is available in oil and gas reserves off the nation’s coastlines. Recent estimates suggest that 16 per cent of the energy consumed in the US is used to produce food. Yet at least 25 per cent of [...]
UNESCO declares Everglades endangered site
A U.N. panel has declared the Florida’s Everglades to be an endangered World Heritage site due to the wetlands’ continued degradation, officials said on Friday. The wetlands’ water inflows have fallen by up to 60 percent and pollution has produced excess plant growth and a decline in marine species, the World Heritage Committee of the [...]
World’s largest fish under threat of extinction
Giant Mekong Catfish, weighing 292kg that was caught by local fishermen in Chiang Khong, northern Thailand Photo: EPA
The construction of a particular dam in northern Laos would disrupt the migration of four of the world’s top ten largest freshwater species to crucial spawning grounds, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) said. In its [...]
The legal perils of ‘grow your own’
Tending the plants at the Lewes Road community garden, which is set to be destroyed. Photograph: Frank Baron for the Guardian
A line of police officers is facing protesters at the gate to the community garden. In the road behind the police, a giant mechanical grabber and a smaller orange digger waits. The mood is unhappy, [...]
UK to back wind and nuclear to avert energy crisis
Energy secretary Chris Huhne will today set out the government’s policy to secure the UK’s energy supplies amid warnings of a potential power crisis. The government will also publish a series of suggestions as to how the UK can meet its commitment to reduce emissions by 80% by mid-century. Ahead of the first annual energy [...]
Renewable Energy at the Tipping Point
No longer a mere suggestion of what might be, renewable energy is hitting a tipping point, with far-reaching implications. For the first time, understanding the scale and patterns of renewable energy development has become essential to any full analysis of trends that will shape the global energy economy and the health of the planet.
That is [...]
Amazon deforestation in dramatic decline, official figures show
Large-scale deforestation in the Amazon rainforest fell dramatically last year, according to official figures released yesterday. Data from satellite sensors making fortnightly detections of only larger areas of forest destruction (greater than 25 hectares) was 1,500km2 between August 2009 and May 2010, compared with 3,000km2 in the same period a year earlier. The Brazilian environment [...]
Is agriculture the next big investment thing?
Hedge funds, with billions of pounds in assets, are recklessly gambling on food prices, with speculators driving massive price volatility that threatens the most vulnerable people on the planet. That’s the view of the World Development Movement (WDM), which issued a damning report this week arguing for a regulatory clampdown on hedge funds and banks [...]
Kalahari Bushmen to appeal against court ban on well in game reserve
The Kalahari Bushmen are to appeal against a decision by the Botswana high court forbidding them to use a well in the central Kalahari game reserve, one of the driest regions in the world, a spokesman announced today. The Bushmen, Africa’s oldest inhabitants, won a ruling in 2006 against eviction from the game park, hailed [...]
Indonesia survey finds many unaware orangutan protected
A quarter of villagers living near orangutans in Indonesia’s Kalimantan province are not aware the rare primates are protected and say orangutans have been killed in their village, said a new survey released on Wednesday. Only a handful of orangutans are left in the wild, mostly in forests on Indonesian provinces of Sumatra and Kalimantan, [...]
An evil atmosphere is forming around geoengineering
In 1892 Edvard Munch witnessed a blood-red sunset over Oslo, Norway. Shaken by it, he wrote in his diary that he felt “a great, unending scream piercing through nature”. The incident inspired him to create his most famous painting, The Scream. The striking sunset was probably caused by the eruption of Krakatoa, which sent a [...]
UK sustainability watchdog to be axed
The coalition government will on Thursday announce plans to axe its sustainability watchdog in order to meet targets for public sector spending cuts, it emerged today. Proponents of the Sustainable Development Commission (SDC) argue that its remit to advise government on reducing its carbon emissions and other resource use saves far more money that it [...]
Protecting wildlife in conflict zones
In Afghanistan’s Wakhan region, a mountainous area bordered by Tajikistan and China, a herd of ibex deftly climbs a steep hillside. Across the valley, a man in Wakhi headdress views them through a spotting scope. His tracking skills are helping …………….. the US-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) assess ibex numbers.
Of all the places to study wildlife, why [...]
Climate change threatens poverty fight, report warns
Climate change threatens to undo years of work to tackle poverty in developing countries, a report warned today. The study by Forum for the Future and supported by the Department for International Development (DFID) said strong, urgent action was needed in poor countries to address the impacts of climate change alongside efforts to boost economic [...]
Letters: Perspectives on global population
Consumption is unsustainable
Scratch the surface of any environmental problem and population growth and unsustainable levels of consumption are the root cause (report, 12 July). We are already in breach of the planet’s capacity to support 6.8bn people, with over 1bn people without access [...]
When a Billion Chinese Jump by Jonathan Watts
A man collects dead fish in Donghu lake in Wuhan Photograph: STR/AP
It’s always wise to be careful what you wish for. When China was poor and communist, its government disdained consumption and castigated the evils of capitalism, while in the west we argued that happiness lay in the joy of stuff. [...]
Kashmir fears forests will disappear through ‘timber smuggling’
Environmental catastrophe looms as corruption hinders moves to halt illegal trade fuelled by construction boom
High above the village of Nawroz Baba, above the shrine, even above the pastures, is the forest. It stretches to the snowy peaks on the skyline.
Ghulam Rasool Dar, who says he is somewhere between 60 and 70 [...]
Last six months second driest in the UK in 96 years, say scientists
River flows have dropped to their lowest levels in 50 years, hundreds of fish have died and reservoirs are drying out, figures show
The last six months have been the second driest recorded in the UK in 96 years, with river flows in some areas at their lowest levels in 50 years and [...]
Cooling caused wars and drought in China
(Reuters) - As Chinese policymakers grapple with an expected increase in extreme weather due to global warming, a study has found that periods of cooling between AD 10 to 1900 also caused a wave of disasters, war and upheaval.
Droughts and locust plagues caused by cooler spells probably triggered internal wars, [...]
Hamish McRae: We have to plan for a bigger population
So by 2051 Britain’s population is to grow to nearly 78 million and ethnic minorities will rise from 8 per cent at the 2001 census to 20 per cent. These are two key conclusions from some research by a team in the geography department at the University of Leeds – a [...]
Is straw the building material of the future?
Straw houses could help to cut carbon emissions – and new research proves that they won’t blow down
Building his house of straw didn’t do the first little pig any favours, but a modern take on straw-bale construction may well be the grand design of the future if results coming out of the [...]
Egypt plans 100MW solar power plant
Second major solar plant announced as country edges towards target of generating 20 per cent of energy from renewables by 2020
The Egyptian Electricity Ministry has unveiled plans to build a new $700m 100MW solar power plant between 2012 and 2017 that should further establish the country as one of the leading [...]
Lloyd’s adds its voice to dire ‘peak oil’ warnings
Business underestimating catastrophic consequences of declining oil, says Lloyd’s of London/ISS report
One of the City’s most respected institutions has warned of “catastrophic consequences” for businesses that fail to prepare for a world of increasing oil scarcity and a lower carbon economy.
The Lloyd’s insurance market and the highly regarded Institute of [...]
Morning Line: Population growth and scorched public services – an explosive mix?
At not much more than 200,000 square kilometres, and around 70 million of us expected to share it by 2030, space is at something of a premium in Britain.
But what happens when the rocketing number of people – there are projected to be nine million more of us in 2030 than there [...]
Europe’s fishing industry ‘unsustainable’ as stocks drop
Today marks ‘fish dependence day’ – where our appetite for seafood means we have to deplete other countries’ resources
The endangered bluefin tuna, Spain. Photograph: Brian J. Skerry/Getty Images/National Geographic
Europeans are eating more fish while stocks in their own seas continue to deplete, according to a new analysis that highlights the [...]
Hosepipe ban looms for north-west England
United Utilities say measure is needed to maintain ‘essential supplies’ in reservoirs during driest conditions since 1929
Millions of homes in north-west England face a hosepipe ban from Friday as water bosses struggle to save water as a drought takes hold.
The restrictions include Liverpool and Manchester but do not cover an area [...]
Regulation is holding back green power, says Drax
Europe’s biggest coal-fired power station is calling for changes to the Government’s renewable energy regulations to enable Drax to convert one of its six coal generators to run on biomass.
Engineers are set to start work converting the facilities immediately and the green generator could be up and running within 18 months. [...]
European Parliament prepares to vote on illegal timber ban
Greenpeace urges member states to ensure new timber rules are properly enforced
The European Parliament is set to vote 7 July on regulations banning the import of timber from illegal logging. Photograph: Lester Lefkowitz/Getty Images
The European Parliament is this week set to vote through new regulations that will ban the import of [...]
Calling for an ‘old-fashioned’ green revolution
Using “good old-fashioned” farming techniques will help deliver a sustainable green revolution in Africa, says Tensie Whelan. In this week’s Green Room, she warns that failure to protect biodiversity, water supplies and forests could spell disaster for the continent.
I have seen many ways in which farmers in Africa have increased [...]
The other oil spill
Early on April 21st 2008, Greenpeace activists dressed as orang-utans stormed Unilever’s headquarters in London. Similar raids took place at the multinational’s facilities on Merseyside, in Rome and in Rotterdam. Furry protesters scaled buildings, occupied production lines and unfurled banners. Many read: “Unilever: Don’t Destroy the Forests”. Dove, one of the company’s best-known brands, was [...]
Paris looks for power from turbines beneath the Seine
Photograph: Martin Bureau/AFP/Getty Images
The river Seine, the historical “sacred river” running through Paris, inspired Monet, Matisse and even the British painter Turner, who sat on its banks to capture the scenery. Now the landscape is to undergo a subtle change, with a plan to install eight turbines underneath the city’s celebrated bridges to raise energy [...]
Battle for the Nile as rivals lay claim to Africa’s great river
Simon Kitra’s back garden looks out over the world’s second-largest freshwater lake. His front lawn opens onto the world’s longest river. If the 20-year-old Ugandan fisherman needs reminding of where his tiny island is, he can look up to the pink obelisk on the hillside, marking where the British explorer John Hanning Speke, sextant in [...]
Good news for heron addicts
Photo: David Featherbe/RSPB/PA
A pair of purple herons have successfully bred in the UK for the first time, conservationists said today. The striking birds breed normally in southern Europe and visit Britain in small numbers each year. But the pair, which have made their home on the Dungeness penindula, Kent, appear to have managed a UK [...]
How ‘zero-grazing’ is set to bring US-style factory farming to Britain
Photo, Graham Barclay
A battle is under way in the British countryside to fight off plans for massive factory farms that would house thousands of animals in industrialised units without access to traditional grazing or foraging. Plans for three large-scale units in England have encountered fierce resistance from campaigners who say they would cause extra noise, [...]
As tiny UAE’s water tab grows, resources run dry
Driving along brand new highways with medians of lush trees and manicured grass, one could easily forget the United Arab Emirates sits on a sweltering desert coast with rapidly diminishing freshwater resources. The Gulf Arab nation’s oil income has allowed it to subsidize extravagant water use for Emiratis, either those in gated communities sporting pristine [...]
19 Kids and Counting – Who Cares?
An editorial distributed to 800 U.S. newspapers and magazines by the Cagle Syndication Service.
18 Kids and Counting. That’s the name of a popular “reality” television show about a couple, Michelle and Jim Bob Duggar, who last fall had 18 children. This week, it was announced that Michelle is pregnant again…so now it’s 19 kids [...]
Giant 500ft wind turbines ‘to be built in Britain within years’
An offshore turbine more than 500ft tall with a diameter of 475ft is already due to make an appearance in British waters within the next two years. But the 10 megawatt machine, dubbed Britannia, may only mark the start of a growing trend, according to the project’s leader Bill Grainger. He sees no reason why offshore [...]
Tackling land degradation crucial for human well-being, UN officials stress
Desertification is caused by climate variations and human actions
United Nations officials today stressed the need to look after the world’s drylands, which are home to more than one billion poor people and where efforts to achieve key development targets face particular challenges. “When we protect and restore drylands, we advance on many fronts at once,” [...]
Food prices to rise by up to 40% over next decade, UN report warns
Food prices are set to rise as much as 40% over the coming decade amid growing demand from emerging markets and for biofuel production, according to a United Nations report today which warns of rising hunger and food insecurity. Farm commodity prices have fallen from their record peaks of two years ago but are set [...]
Oxford locals in fresh battle to stop Thames’ giant reservoir
A row over the construction of a £1bn reservoir the size of Heathrow airport is set to be reignited today at the opening of a public inquiry into the proposals. Thames Water, the company which supplies drinking water to London, wants to site the reservoir on 5,000 acres of Oxfordshire farmland but is being opposed [...]
Saving suburban gardens will make Britain’s housing problems worse
Who could possibly want to destroy gardens? What black-hearted villain could want to rob a street of its flowers and birds in order to build brick boxes? Enough, according to the government, for 180,000 such homes to be built in the past five years, but no longer. The decentralisation minister, Greg Clark, has announced that [...]
Melting mountains put millions at risk in Asia: study
Increased melting of glaciers and snow in the Himalayas and Tibetan Plateau threatens the food security of millions of people in Asia, a study shows, with Pakistan likely to be among the nations hardest hit. A team of scientists in Holland studied the impacts of climate change on five major Asian rivers on which about [...]
EU biofuels ‘need to be certified for sustainability’
EU nations are being encouraged to set up certification schemes to ensure biofuels help cut emissions and do not threaten biodiversity. The plans, outlined by the European Commission, would apply to all types of biofuels, including imported fuel. The commission said the schemes would deliver substantial CO2 reductions and help protect forests and wetlands. Environmental groups [...]
UK will fail climate change target
In 2000 the last Government set a target of generating 10 per cent of electricity from renewable energy sources like wind, wave or solar by 2010. But a report from the National Audit Office said the target is likely to be missed this year, despite direct government grants of £265 million to help energy companies [...]
Top scientist says politicians have ‘heads in the sand’ over oil
An oil sands extraction facility in Alberta, Canada. The world’s oil is running out, says Sir David King – leading to more use of unconventional oil sources. Photograph: Mark Ralston/AFP
Britain’s former chief scientist has attacked politicians and industry experts who have their “heads in the sand” over dwindling oil supplies. Sir David King said governments, [...]
Support for U.S. climate regulation growing
A growing number of Americans want the United States to regulate greenhouse gas emissions as the largest oil spill in U.S. history helps boost interest in petroleum alternatives, a poll by two universities found on Tuesday. About 77 percent of 1,204 Americans polled support regulating carbon dioxide as a pollutant, up 6 percentage points from [...]
Give decision makers access to the value of nature’s services
Decision makers need access to the value of ecosystems. The value of preserving biodiversity outweighs that of destroying them. Photograph: Antonio Scorza/AFP/Getty Images
It is all too easy to forget in the city-centred 21st century that human wellbeing is utterly dependent on the natural world. To state the obvious, we cannot survive without fresh water, food [...]
Oil power: Vocal cinema
One minute, herds of caribou are scampering through the lush green subarctic forests of western Canada. The next, their progress is impeded by country-sized carve-ups of vegetation. Toxic ponds visible from space leak poisonous chemicals into rivers. Cavalcades of diggers score through the countryside, eager to lay their claws on that most precious of fuel [...]
Amazon forest fires ‘on the rise’
Fragmentation increases the amount of forest edges at risk of being set alight
The number of fires destroying Amazon rainforests are increasing, a study has found. A team of scientists said fires in the region could release similar amounts of carbon as deliberate deforestation. Writing in Science, they said fire occurrence rates had increased in [...]
Tide of oil threatens to wipe out the iconic pelican
For more than a decade, the hundreds of brown pelicans that nested among the mangrove shrubs on Queen Bess Island, south of New Orleans, were living proof that a species brought to the edge of extinction could come back and thrive. The island was one of three sites in Louisiana where pelicans were reintroduced after [...]
Nuclear fusion dream hit by EU’s cash dilemma
A £15bn international bid to harness the fusion process that powers the Sun is facing a major funding crisis. Scientists have revealed that the cost of the International Thermonuclear Experiment Reactor (Iter) has trebled from its original £5bn price tag in the past three years. At the same time, financial crises have beset all the [...]
Solar panels could be a threat to aquatic insects, new research shows
Solar panels could wipe out fragile populations of insects, according to a new study that raises fresh doubts about the ecological impact of some forms of renewable energy. Scientists have discovered that aquatic insects such as the mayfly can mistake shiny photovoltaic panels for pools of water, which they rely on to reproduce. They urge [...]
Kalahari Bushmen’s fight for right to water adds to growing anger at Botswana rulers
Africa’s oldest inhabitants are on the march. It was announced last week that the Kalahari Bushmen are returning to court in a new battle with the government of Botswana. The ancient tribe claim they are denied access to a water borehole on their land, one of the driest regions on the planet. The Bushmen won [...]
UN plans another gorilla rescue airlift
In continuing efforts to preserve gorillas, one of the world’s most endangered species, the United Nations mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), will next month carry out a second airlift of six baby gorillas to a sanctuary where they will be cared for before they released into the wild. “Together, the orphaned gorillas [...]
Indonesia says won’t revoke existing forestry licenses
Indonesia won’t revoke existing forestry licenses for palm oil firms as part of a deal with Norway to preserve rain forests, a government minister and industry official said on Wednesday. Chief Economic Minister Hatta Rajasa told reporters that the government had no intention of limiting the expansion of the $15-billion Indonesian palm oil industry, although [...]
Excessive consumption spreading to developing countries. Could wipe out efforts to slow climate change.
The average American consumes more than his or her weight in products each day, fuelling a global culture of excess that is emerging as the biggest threat to the planet, according to a report published today. In its annual report, Worldwatch Institute says the cult of consumption and greed could wipe out any gains from [...]
Government review to examine threat of world resources shortage
Ministers have ordered a review of looming global shortages of resources, from fish and timber to water and precious metals, amid mounting concern that the problem could hit every sector of the economy. The study has been commissioned following sharp rises in many commodity prices on the world markets and recent riots in some countries [...]
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