World's biggest offshore windfarm planned off Scottish coast | Environment. The £4.5bn complex would have 339 turbines covering 300 square kilometres off Caithness. Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images The world's biggest offshore windfarm could be built off the northern Scottish coast, after a scheme with enough capacity to power 40% of Scottish households was submitted for planning permission. The £4.5bn complex would have 339 turbines covering 300 square kilometres off Caithness, making it 50% bigger than the giant London Array scheme off Kent. It is expected to be the first in a series of deep water schemes under "Round 3" licensing.
The renewable industry has hailed it as a watershed moment but warned these new deep water farms might only be fully realised if the government provides policy stability by pushing through its proposed Energy Bill. Dan Finch, project director for the scheme due to come on stream in 2018, said working more than 12 miles from shore allowed it to take advantage of the excellent wind resource in the outer Moray Firth. If we want food to remain cheap we need to stop putting it in our cars | Business. Coverage of the US drought and the run-up in corn, soybean, and wheat prices has been extensive and welcome.
It has also been prone to the repetition of falsehoods and the perpetuation of myths about the causes of the food crisis – and the solutions. A recent Guardian article, "The era of cheap food may be over," is a case in point. Specifically, it perpetuates the myth that the main driver of food price increases is demand for meat in fast-growing developing countries. This effectively downplays the full impact of biofuels and ignores two problems underlying price volatility: financial speculation and the lack of publicly held food reserves. Give Larry Elliott credit for posing the issue in terms of the difficult policy choices the world faces.
He's certainly right to pose the challenge. It sure is, but so his framing of the problem. What is the demand shock that has occurred since 2000? We should also consider four other straightforward and proven policies: 1. 2. 3. 4. The era of cheap food may be over | Business. Maize on a drought-hit farm in Indiana. The US maize harvest is down by more than 100m tonnes on what was expected. Photograph: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images The last decade saw the end of cheap oil, the magic growth ingredient for the global economy after the second world war.
This summer's increase in maize, wheat and soya bean prices – the third spike in the past five years – suggests the era of cheap food is also over. Price increases in both oil and food provide textbook examples of market forces. The same demand dynamics affect food. Farmers have been getting more efficient, increasing the yields of land under production, but this has been offset by two negative factors: policies in the US and the EU that divert large amounts of corn for biofuels and poor harvests caused by the weather. If the World Bank's projections are anything like accurate, further massive productivity gains from agriculture are going to be needed over the next two decades. So what happens next? Illegal wildlife trading in internet's deepest, darkest corners | Environment. There are fewer than 1,000 Luristan newts left in the wild in Iran, yet they are illegally sold as pets.
Photograph: Barbod Safaei Mahroo/Lorestan Mountain Newt Conservation Plan Bashful and skittish, the Kaiser's spotted newt is intriguing and beautiful. With only around 1,000 adults left in the wild in just four mountain streams in Iran, it is also critically endangered. But the black, white and orange salamanders are openly on sale for as little as £65 on numerous websites.
While these may have been bred in captivity, they are descended from rare individuals taken from the wild, and investigators have identified dealers who say their stocks come from Iran. Two years ago the Kaiser's spotted newt was listed as one of the first species to be put at risk of extinction by online dealers. "The internet has without a doubt facilitated the huge expansion of illegal international wildlife trading over the last decade," said Crawford Allan, of the wildlife trade monitoring network Traffic. Why Britain's battle to bring down social inequality has failed | Society. Danny Dorling has been readying himself for some indignant reactions in political circles to his latest book, unequivocally titled Injustice: Why Social Inequality Persists, and published as the election campaign is in full swing. "Labour people will be angry because they will say, 'You haven't talked about what we've done, and we've done so very much.' They won't accept it.
And the Conservatives will use it to bash Labour as part of their broken Britain thing. " Pausing for a moment, the lifelong Labour voter adds: "It's very strange finding yourself being quoted by the Tories. " Dorling, a professor of human geography at Sheffield University, and an expert on health and social inequalities, is best known for deftly taking apart seemingly impenetrable statistics and using them to shine a light on some of the starkest wealth and health disparities around the UK and globally.
But he insists that his latest book, published today, "is just as much an indictment of the Conservatives. Relationship violence 'normal' to disadvantaged British teens | Health. Research into violence in relationships finds that some disadvantaged British youngsters now accept physical and sexual abuse as a normal part of partnerships. The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) funded researchers from the University of Bristol in examining the experiences of 82 youngsters aged from 13 to 18-years-old. The teenagers were considered disadvantaged because they were no longer in education and their number included convicted offenders and teenage parents.
While the team behind the research admit that such a small sample cannot be considered representative of the wider population, they argue that their research suggests that violence is much more prevalent than has been previously thought. Of their study group, more than 50 percent of the girls had suffered sexual violence in a relationship; more than half also reported physical violence. "Only through awareness can we start to reduce abuse which damages so many young lives. " Social Inequality and the New Elite. As South Africa Reels from Mine Shootings, Social Inequality Threatens to Undo the Post-Apartheid ‘Miracle’ A series of police massacres from the 1960s to the 1980s helped seal the fate of white minority rule in South Africa, so it’s hardly surprising that last week’s killing of 34 striking mine workers has left the ANC government politically paralyzed: It was the erstwhile liberation movement — now the ruling party — that sent the police to break up a strike at the Marikana platinum mine outside Rustenberg, where the resulting confrontation turned into a bloodbath.
In the days since, the ANC leadership — so quick, usually, to rally in support of traumatized communities — has reportedly been conspicuous by its absence, only fueling the rage of the miners and their supporters. President Jacob Zuma has called for calm, for mourning and soul-searching, and for an investigation. But Zuma will know as well as anyone that the Marikana shootings may yet prove to be the symbolic moment that signaled the unraveling of South Africa’s post-apartheid social contract. Sixty years of change in India | Craig Jeffrey. This week marks the 60th anniversary of India's constitution. Formally adopted on 26 January 1950, the constitution established India as a democratic republic. Amid its numerous clauses and sub-clauses was a series of "fundamental rights" which, if followed to the letter, would protect India's citizens from exploitation, discrimination, and arbitrary arrest.
The constitution offered a vision of a fairer India, where inequalities of money, caste, status and gender would no longer determine people's lot in life. The Indian government was charged with addressing the country's poverty through granting its citizens education, work, and a living wage. India has taken great strides towards meeting the aims of its constitution.
But geographical and social inequalities continue to divide India. Political problems compound this social and economic crisis. Unsurprisingly, it is those at the bottom of India's entrenched class and caste hierarchies who suffer most. Poverty and Rising Social Inequality in India. The issue of poverty keeps rearing its inconvenient head in India. The Planning Commission tends to keep on shifting the poverty line, but it is always at a ludicrously low level, which underestimates the numbers actually living in poverty. But playing fast and loose with India’s poverty line has almost become a trendy pastime. The truth is that poverty is an embarrassment. It is an embarrassment to many of India’s rich and to a good number of politicians, who like to portray the country as an emerging superpower, with its space programme, sophisticated weaponry, sports towns, growth figures, Formula 1 race track and gleaming malls. Apart from such headline-grabbing trappings, India also houses the second largest number of affluent people in the world, with three million households having over $100,000 of investable funds.
Reality check. Instead of concentrating on GDP growth figures, how about we focus on the annual poverty alleviation figure? But, hold on a minute. What India and America have in common: Inequality. Editor's Note: Pranab Bardhan is Professor of Economics, University of California at Berkeley and the author, most recently, of Awakening Giants, Feet of Clay: Assessing the Rise of China and India. By Pranab Bardhan, Project Syndicate Inequality is on the public’s mind almost everywhere nowadays.
Indeed, in the world’s two largest democracies, India and the United States, widespread popular movements against rising inequality and elite greed are becoming highly salient issues in looming national elections. Yet, in both countries, some social inequalities have been on the decline over the last few decades. In India, certain historically disadvantaged groups (particularly among the lower castes) are now politically assertive. The most egregious vestiges of caste discrimination are gradually disappearing. Similarly, in the U.S., discrimination against women, African-Americans, Latinos, and homosexuals is declining.
These developments reflect a democratic advance in both countries.