Category Archives: Environment

Pesticide report ‘was misrepresented’ | Letter

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Three scientific advisers to the European commission take issue with the Guardian’s account of their recommendations concerning pesticides

We write as chief scientific advisors to the European commission, authors of the scientific opinion on EU authorisation processes of plant protection products referred to in your article (Science institute that advised EU and UN ‘actually industry lobby group’”, 3 June). We are a completely independent expert group basing our reports on a wide range of sources and evidence, including academia, practitioners, NGOs and industry, but quite separate from them.

The statement in your article that our report recommends “a slew of industry positions” on pesticides is incorrect. What was recommended in our report was that the European commission “facilitates a broader discussion throughout society to establish an EU-wide, shared vision for food production, including the role of plant protection products therein”. Likewise, it is incorrect to say that we recommend replacing current rules outlawing any products that could harm human health with a US-style concept of “acceptable risk”. What our report says is that the European commission should “re-examine the treatment of hazards, risks, costs and benefits – to provide reassurance that the system is fit for purpose”.
Professor Rolf-Dieter Heuer (Chair), Sir Paul Nurse and Professor Janusz Bujnicki
European commission group of chief scientific advisors

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Unesco advisers raise concerns over plan to raise Warragamba dam wall

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World Heritage centre says proposal would result in inundation of large part of world heritage-listed Blue Mountains wilderness area

Advisers to the United Nations have expressed concerns about a plan to raise the Warragamba Dam wall because of its likely impact on the Blue Mountains.

The World Heritage Centre, which advises the UN committee in charge of world heritage properties, published its position on the project on Friday.

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Fukushima diary, part two: overwhelming kindness and a new home

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The mayor of Okuma, home of the damaged nuclear power plant, has been in exile for eight years – here he writes about finally returning

The residents of Okuma were among more than 150,000 people who were forced to flee their homes after the March 2011 triple meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. As one of the wrecked plant’s two host towns, Okuma was abandoned for eight years before authorities declared that radiation levels had fallen to safe levels, allowing residents to return. Even now, 60% of Okuma remains off limits, and only a tiny fraction of the pre-disaster population of 11,500 has returned since their former neighbourhoods were given the all clear in April. A month later, Okuma’s mayor, Toshitsuna Watanabe, and his colleagues returned to work at a new town hall. In the second of a three-part diary for the Guardian, Watanabe recalls the search for a temporary home for Okuma’s nuclear evacuees.

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Heathrow eateries to take least sustainable fish off menus

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Airport will be world’s first accredited for serving sustainably sourced fish

Heathrow is to become the world’s first airport accredited for serving sustainably sourced fish and seafood, as all its restaurants pledge to help tackle overfishing.

Outlets whose menus still include “red-rated” fish – deemed by the Marine Conservation Society to be the least sustainable – have pledged to remove them by June 2020. Fish in that category include wild atlantic salmon, bluefin tuna and king prawns from non-certified farms.

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The end of the Arctic as we know it

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Less oxygen and ice, more acid and heat. Jonathan Watts joins an expedition studying what this means for the planet

The demise of an entire ocean is almost too enormous to grasp, but as the expedition sails deeper into the Arctic, the colossal processes of breakdown are increasingly evident.

The first fragment of ice appears off the starboard bow a few miles before the 79th parallel in the Fram strait, which lies between Greenland and the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard. The solitary floe is soon followed by another, then another, then clusters, then swarms, then entire fields of white crazy paving that stretch to the horizon.

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Eiffel Tower revamp to turn roads into garden in heart of Paris

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€72m makeover will create mile-long stretch of pools, fountains and parks

A garden stretches for a mile, free of cars with one of the world’s most recognisable monuments at its centre. Crossing the river on a tree-lined and lawned bridge, the roar of traffic has been replaced by the sound of water from fountains.

Such is the vision for the Eiffel Tower, which is at the centre of a major makeover project to transform one of Paris’s most visited districts.

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Barcelona port is worst in Europe for cruise ship air pollution

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City tops list of 50 European ports for both sulphur oxide and nitrogen oxide emissions

The port of Barcelona, a city already overwhelmed by mass tourism, has topped a list of 50 European ports for the amount of air pollution produced there by cruise ships, according to a report.

In 2017 cruise ships emitted 32.8 tonnes of sulphur oxide (SOx) in Barcelona, according to the research. Palma de Mallorca was the second most polluted, with 28 tonnes, followed by Venice with 27.5. Southampton, with 19.7 tonnes, was fifth on the list.

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Chernobyl now: ‘I was not afraid of radiation’ – a photo essay

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Photographer Tom Skipp visited Chernobyl and nearby Pripyat, its replacement town Slavutych, and the abandoned sites of the region – meeting the people behind the disaster: from the liquidators who worked at the fallout site, to the resettlers and the community who live and work in the area now

I arrived in Ukraine on the eve of the 32nd anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster. I had not intended for it to be the focus of my time in Kyiv, but leading up to my departure it became an obsession. My arrival in Kyiv on 25 April 2018 was maybe happenstance of planning but I was impelled to head straight from the airport to Slavutych. This was the town built to replace Pripyat and host the evacuated personnel of the Chernobyl power plant, after the decision was made to continue power production following the disaster. All of the Soviet republics were called upon to hurriedly help with the construction of what would eventually be the last atomic town.

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Pollution warnings keep us healthier – but only in the short term

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It is not fair to ask people to adapt their lives to dirty air. We need to solve the problem at source

Can telling people about air pollution lessen the impact? A new air quality index was launched in Hong Kong at the end of 2013. This included forecasts and information for vulnerable people; doctors were enlisted to advise their patients too. A new analysis of seven years of data showed that the start of the index was followed by a 16% reduction in the number of children treated in hospital with respiratory infections and pneumonia. This was attributed to parents following official advice to keep their children indoors during smogs. However, the benefit was short-lived and lasted for only about a year. Other studies have also found that people are willing to adapt their lives for short periods to protect themselves but not in the longer term. No effect was seen in elderly people. This was thought to be due to low literacy rates and difficulties in reaching them with information.

Others have criticised indices for focusing on smogs rather than the more harmful exposure to low levels of air pollution every day. Asking people to adapt to poor air pollution may help but we need to solve the problem at source. Our lives should not be further compromised by adapting what we do because of the quality of our air.

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Two million people at risk of starvation as drought returns to Somalia

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Agencies sound the alarm over ‘climate crisis’ after devastation of crops and livestock

More than 2 million people could face starvation by the end of the summer, unless there are urgent efforts to respond to the drought in Somalia.

Mark Lowcock, the UN’s humanitarian chief, said the country is facing one of the driest rainy seasons in more than three decades, and a “rapidly deteriorating humanitarian situation”.

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‘No way to stop it’: millions of pigs culled across Asia as swine fever spreads

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Experts say region is losing the battle to stop the biggest animal disease outbreak the planet has ever faced

South-east Asia is battling to contain the spread of highly contagious African swine fever, known as “pig Ebola”, which has already led to the culling of millions of pigs in China and Vietnam.

African swine fever, which is harmless to humans but fatal to pigs, was discovered in China in August, where it has caused havoc, leading to more than 1.2m pigs being culled. China is home to almost half of the world’s pigs and the news sent the global price of pork soaring.

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People eat at least 50,000 plastic particles a year, study finds

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Health effects of ingestion of microplastics via food, water and breathing still unknown

The average person eats at least 50,000 particles of microplastic a year and breathes in a similar quantity, according to the first study to estimate human ingestion of plastic pollution.

The true number is likely to be many times higher, as only a small number of foods and drinks have been analysed for plastic contamination. The scientists reported that drinking a lot of bottled water drastically increased the particles consumed.

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Athens’ buried rivers: stream favoured by Plato could see light of day

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The Greek capital entombed its major rivers in concrete during its car-centred postwar development. Now the most storied of them, Ilisos, could be set free

Photographs by Christian Sinibaldi

Walking through the densely built metropolis of Athens, few visitors or even locals realise the Greek capital was once crisscrossed by three major rivers, not to mention some 700 smaller streams that flowed into them.

The Kifisos, the Iridanos and the Ilisos were buried under concrete during the city’s postwar car-centred development, in what daily newspaper Kathimerini has labelled “a crime against the city”.

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Unwelcome guests: moped riders protest as Amsterdam drives them from bike lanes

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Dutch capital steps its pro-cycling reputation up a gear with new regulations – and not everyone is happy

Convoys of mopeds speed down Amsterdam’s bike lanes, beeping their horns and flouting their bare heads. This isn’t some strange Dutch festival, though. These were protests from some of the thousands of furious moped riders ahead of a new city regulation which came into force this week to force them out of bike lanes, on to main roads and into helmets.

The cycling city of Amsterdam is stepping up a gear – with plans to ban petrol and diesel vehicles from the centre by 2030, the removal of 10,000 car-parking spaces, a hike in parking charges and a wide range of measures to take from the car and give to pedestrians, cyclists, green space and children.

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Climate crisis seriously damaging human health, report finds

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National academies say effects include spread of diseases and worse mental health

A report by experts from 27 national science academies has set out the widespread damage global heating is already causing to people’s health and the increasingly serious impacts expected in future.

Scorching heatwaves and floods will claim more victims as extreme weather increases but there are serious indirect effects too, from spreading mosquito-borne diseases to worsening mental health.

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Science institute that advised EU and UN ‘actually industry lobby group’

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International Life Sciences Institute used by corporate backers to counter public health policies, says study

An institute whose experts have occupied key positions on EU and UN regulatory panels is, in reality, an industry lobby group that masquerades as a scientific health charity, according to a peer-reviewed study.

The Washington-based International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI) describes its mission as “pursuing objectivity, clarity and reproducibility” to “benefit the public good”.

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Candidate to run global food body will ‘not defend’ EU stance on GM

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Catherine Geslain-Lanéelle tells US she would be more open to its interests in UN role

Europe’s candidate to run the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), which guides policymakers around the world, has promised the US she will “not defend the EU position” in resisting the global spread of genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

In a bid for US support, Catherine Geslain-Lanéelle told senior US officials at a meeting in Washington on 15 May that under her leadership the FAO would be more open to American interests and accepting of GMOs and gene editing, according to a US official record of the meeting seen by the Guardian.

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Rebecca Solnit: ‘Every protest shifts the world’s balance’

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Two hundred years after the Peterloo massacre, which led to the founding of the Manchester Guardian, protest is shaping our political moment. Where do we go from here?

Scale it up and it’s revolution; scale it down and it’s individual non-cooperation that may be seen as nothing more than obstinacy or malingering or not seen at all. What we call protest identifies one aspect of popular power and resistance, a force so woven into history and everyday life that you miss a lot of its impact if you focus only on groups of people taking stands in public places. But people taking such stands have changed the world over and over, toppled regimes, won rights, terrified tyrants, stopped pipelines and deforestation and dams. They go far further back than the Peterloo protests and massacre 200 years ago, to the great revolutions of France and then of Haiti against France and back before that to peasant uprisings and indigenous resistance in Africa and the Americas to colonisation and enslavement and to countless acts of resistance on all scales that were never recorded.

They will go far forward from this moment. And at this moment, with organisations addressing the climate crisis, reinvigorated feminism in many parts of the world, antiracist and human rights campaigns focused on specific groups and issues, protest is a force running through everything – and running against a lot of things, since this is also an age of authoritarianism and a consolidation of wealth among a global superelite.

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Fukushima diary, part one: ‘I’m finally home’

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The mayor of Okuma, home of the damaged nuclear power plant, has been in exile for eight years – here he writes about finally returning

The residents of Okuma were among more than 150,000 people who were forced to flee their homes after the March 2011 triple meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. As one of the wrecked plant’s two host towns, Okuma, was abandoned for eight years before authorities declared that radiation levels had fallen to safe levels, allowing residents to return. Even now, 60% of Okuma remains off-limits, and only a tiny fraction of the pre-disaster population of 11,500 has returned since their former neighbourhoods were given the all clear in April. A month later, Okuma’s mayor, Toshitsuna Watanabe, and his colleagues returned to work at a new town hall. In the first of a three-part diary for the Guardian, Watanabe describes his feelings when, after years of displacement, he and other residents ended their nuclear exile.

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