Category Archives: Environment

Plan to sell 50m meals made from electricity, water and air

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Solar Foods hopes wheat flour-like product will hit target in supermarkets within two years

A Finnish company that makes food from electricity, water and air has said it plans to have 50m meals’ worth of its product sold in supermarkets within two years.

Solar Foods is also working with the European Space Agency to supply astronauts on a mission to Mars after devising a method it says creates a protein-heavy product that looks and tastes like wheat flour at a cost of €5 (£4.50) per kilo.

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Heatwave cooks mussels in their shells on California shore

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Temperatures lead to what appears to be largest local die-off in 15 years, raising fears for broader ecosystem

In all her years working at Bodega Bay, the marine reserve research coordinator Jackie Sones had never seen anything like it: scores of dead mussels on the rocks, their shells gaping and scorched, their meats thoroughly cooked.

A record-breaking June heatwave apparently caused the largest die-off of mussels in at least 15 years at Bodega Head, a small headland on the northern California bay. And Sones received reports from other researchers of similar mass mussel deaths at various beaches across roughly 140 miles of coastline.

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Iran says progress made in nuclear talks is still not enough

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Expectations are not being met in discussions with world powers, claims Iranian envoy

Iran said some progress had been made at a meeting with world powers on its nuclear accord – but probably “still not enough” to keep the landmark 2015 deal alive.

“It was a step forward, but it is still not enough and not meeting Iran’s expectations,” said Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, after the talks on Friday. “I don’t think the progress made today will be enough to stop our process – but the decision will be made in Tehran.”

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Wimbledon ditches plastic racket covers in sustainability drive

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All England Lawn Tennis Club move means there will be 4,500 fewer plastic bags this year

It might not quite be a Wimbledon tradition along the lines of the all-white dress code but the sight of players’ discarding the plastic cover from a freshly strung racket is a familiar one at SW19.

However, it will not be seen at this year’s championships, which begin on Monday – or in future Wimbledon tournaments – after a review of use of plastics, and sustainability generally, by the All England Lawn Tennis Club (AELTC).

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Dunes at Trump golf course in Scotland to lose protected status

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Agency wants to remove golf course area from Forevan Links site of special scientific interest

The spectacular sand dunes at Donald Trump’s golf course in Aberdeenshire are expected to be stripped of their special conservation status.

Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH), a government conservation agency, has recommended that the dunes lose their designation as a site of special scientific interest (SSSI) because they have been “partially destroyed” by the course.

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The planet’s heating up but candidates’ climate crisis response remains tepid

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The 10 candidates on stage in Miami accurately conveyed the urgency of global heating but missed chances to show how it underlies all key political issues

Thursday’s Democratic debate demonstrated just how far the the US is from contemplating the climate crisis as a threat that will touch almost all areas of American life and policymaking.

Once again, debate moderators waited until nearly 80 minutes into the debate to pose questions on the climate emergency.

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Europe heatwave: cities take steps to limit effects of record temperatures

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Germany imposes speed limits on highways while schools in France remain closed

European cities are taking exceptional steps to limit the impact of a historic early summer heatwave as temperatures across the continent approached monthly and, in some places, all-time records.

Authorities have warned that temperatures could pass 40C and reach 45C in parts of the continent by Saturday as a plume of hot air moves north from the Sahara, sucked northwards by a stalled storm over the Atlantic and high pressure in central Europe.

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Can you guess the world city from the cycle lane icon?

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Some cities use images of bikes and riders, with or without helmets. Some use riderless bikes – and others just get the geometry all wrong. Can you tell what city it is from its cycle lane icon?

Which city is this?

London

Paris

New York

Which city is this?

San Francisco

Manchester

Vancouver

Which city is this?

Amsterdam

Sydney

Edinburgh

Which city is this?

Stockholm

Milan

Washington DC

Which city is this?

Tokyo

Jakarta

Singapore

Which city is this?

Bahrain

New Orleans

Copenhagen

Which city is this?

Lille

Seattle

London

Which city is this?

Perth

Prague

Pittsburgh

8 and above.

Excellent

7 and above.

Very good

6 and above.

Pretty good

5 and above.

Not bad

4 and above.

Not bad

3 and above.

Hmm

2 and above.

Oops

0 and above.

Oops

1 and above.

Oops

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‘People think we’re from another planet’: meet Karachi’s female cyclists

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Teams of women and girls are among numerous cycle groups increasingly to be seen on the streets of the frenetic Pakistan megacity

Early on Sunday morning in Karachi, a group of girls are riding loops around an empty stretch of road outside the colonial-era Custom House. At 6am they left the narrow alleys of the old neighbourhood of Lyari, branded a war zone by national and international media after a lengthy and brutal gang conflict. Two hours later they are still happily pedalling away, in ballet slippers and with headscarves tucked under helmets.

“I used to cycle alone,” says Gullu Badar, 15. “It’s nice to cycle here because there’s no danger, no cars. It feels good that there are other girls cycling with me too.”

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Lift ‘unfair’ ban on ivory trade, southern African leaders urge summit

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Zimbabwe, Botswana, Zambia, Angola and Namibia call for embargo suspension to allow sale of hugely valuable stockpiles

Southern African leaders have renewed calls for a lifting of the ban on the ivory trade as debate over the “unfair” embargo escalates.

At a wildlife economic summit in Zimbabwe, leaders of the five countries that make up the Kavango-Zambezi conservation area – Zimbabwe, Botswana, Zambia, Angola and Namibia – raised the issue ahead of the August conference of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) in Geneva, Switzerland.

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Super funds and investors with $34tn urge leaders to speed up climate action

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Fund managers call on world leaders to bring in carbon pricing and phase out coal power ahead of G20

Superannuation funds and investors representing US$34tn in assets – nearly half of the total under management across the globe – have called on world leaders to bring in carbon pricing and phase out coal power to limit global heating to 1.5C.

Released ahead of a G20 leaders meeting in Osaka, Japan, the statement by 477 institutional investors urges world leaders to accelerate their response to the climate crisis to ensure the goals of the 2015 Paris climate deal can be met.

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BMW aims to double electric and hybrid sales in next two years

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Carmaker to have 25 electrified models on sale by 2023 as strict new EU rules loom

BMW is accelerating its push away from the internal combustion engine towards battery technology, as the German carmaker seeks to double the number of electric and hybrid vehicles it sells in the next two years.

The company will have 25 electrified models on sale in 2023, two years earlier than previously planned, it announced on Tuesday. More than half of the vehicles will be fully electric.

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‘Climate apartheid’: UN expert says human rights may not survive

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Right to life is likely to be undermined alongside the rule of law, special rapporteur says

The world is increasingly at risk of “climate apartheid”, where the rich pay to escape heat and hunger caused by the escalating climate crisis while the rest of the world suffers, a report from a UN human rights expert has said.

Philip Alston, UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, said the impacts of global heating are likely to undermine not only basic rights to life, water, food, and housing for hundreds of millions of people, but also democracy and the rule of law.

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The climate costs of a plastic planet | Carroll Muffett

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Every stage of the plastic lifecycle releases harmful carbon emissions into the atmosphere, contributing to global heating

Plastics are among the most ubiquitous materials in our economy, our lives, and our environment. They are also among the most pervasive and persistent pollutants on Earth.

In recent years, stark images of beaches, waterways, and wildlife filled with plastic have spurred demands for action to address plastic pollution. These calls are coupled with growing concern that plastic and its toxic additives pose serious risks to human health at every stage of the plastic lifecycle. Far less attention has been paid to the impacts of this same lifecycle on the earth’s climate. This is a dangerous oversight.

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Upset about the plastic crisis? Stop trying so hard

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We make good-faith efforts to help the planet by recycling, but what we really need to do is even simpler

Did you ever decide to get off a jammed freeway and take the backroads even though deep down you knew that it wouldn’t be any faster? Are you constantly switching to the faster lane on a busy freeway even though you notice that cars sticking to their lanes keep catching up with you?

Both are examples of action bias, the phenomenon in which people prefer doing something over doing nothing, even if the likely outcome of the action is worse than the outcome of inaction. Research has shown that actively managed portfolios tend to do worse than passive investments. And one study found that soccer goalkeepers prefer to jump left or right during a penalty kick, even though the best thing would be to stay put in the middle.

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German Greens are on the rise. But the nation is divided | Anna Lehmann

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The party has to address the concerns of groups beyond its urban base if it is to ultimately succeed

The Greens in Germany could hardly believe it. Leading party members were bouncing up and down when the public broadcasters sent the first, still uncertain results on the evening of the European Union elections. The green column rose to 20% and above, close to the black column of Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats, which ended up with 22.6%. Party manager Michael Kellner was beaming as the numbers came in.

Over the course of the evening it became clear that the Green party had nearly doubled its seats in the European parliament and had overtaken the Social Democrats, the former “people’s party”. A historic victory for us, a historic disaster for them.

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Great Pacific Garbage Patch: giant plastic trap put to sea again

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Floating boom is designed to trap 1.8 trillion items of plastic without harming marine life – but broke apart last time

A floating device designed to catch plastic waste has been redeployed in a second attempt to clean up a huge island of garbage swirling in the Pacific Ocean between California and Hawaii.

Boyan Slat, creator of the Ocean Cleanup project, announced on Twitter that a 600-metre (2,000ft) long floating boom that broke apart late last year was sent back to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch this week after four months of repair.

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Culture shock: politics upended in era of identity

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Two worldviews face each other uncomprehendingly – and the flashpoint is the climate emergency

This is the first piece in a new series on what the election result means for the progressive side of politics and the path forward

Political commentators reflexively overinterpret election results. The story we’ve been told is that the Coalition’s win means that “Australian voters” have rejected Labor’s radical plan for reform of the tax-and-spend system, confirming that Australians prefer stability and incremental change.

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Vanuatu to ban disposable nappies in plastics crackdown: ‘We had no choice’

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Nation suffering disproportionately from climate emergency to phase in ban, believed to be world first, by December

It is but a tiny speck in the Pacific Ocean, but the island state of Vanuatu is leading the global fight against plastic waste. The nation, which has already introduced one of the toughest single-use plastic bans in the world, is believed to be the first to propose a ban on disposable nappies, to be phased in at the end of this year.

At a meeting in London this week, chaired by Patricia Scotland, the secretary general of the Commonwealth, Vanuatu was hailed as a “champion” nation, one of 12 who are forging ahead in tackling ocean and climate emergency challenges.

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