Without nuclear, the battle against global warming is as good as lost | Mark Lynas | Environment. A madness is taking hold. In the same week as Arctic ice cover is recorded at its lowest ever extent, two major countries decide to reduce or eliminate their use of the only proven source of low-carbon power that can be deployed at sufficient scale to tackle our climate crisis. Japan plans to phase out nuclear entirely by 2030, its prime minister announced today. The French president has just revealed a plan to dramatically reduce the country's reliance on nuclear, which currently gives France some of the cleanest electricity in the world.
Let me be very clear. Given the trauma the Japanese people have suffered since the earthquake and tsunami of 11 March 2011, it is understandable that major questions are asked of domestic politicians. But in response to the nuclear shutdown, oil and gas imports to Japan have doubled, and carbon dioxide emissions soared by more than 60m tonnes. Japan is already backing away from its own climate change targets. 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.
Rapid expansion in the big emerging markets, especially China, has led to an increase in demand at a time when there have been supply constraints. 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. So what happens next? Food shortages could force world into vegetarianism, warn scientists | Global development. Leading water scientists have issued one of the sternest warnings yet about global food supplies, saying that the world's population may have to switch almost completely to a vegetarian diet over the next 40 years to avoid catastrophic shortages.
Humans derive about 20% of their protein from animal-based products now, but this may need to drop to just 5% to feed the extra 2 billion people expected to be alive by 2050, according to research by some of the world's leading water scientists. "There will not be enough water available on current croplands to produce food for the expected 9 billion population in 2050 if we follow current trends and changes towards diets common in western nations," the report by Malik Falkenmark and colleagues at the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) said. Dire warnings of water scarcity limiting food production come as Oxfam and the UN prepare for a possible second global food crisis in five years. Do we still need nature reserves? | Environment. On a curve of soft sand are the broad hieroglyphics made by seals hauling themselves above the tideline the previous night.
As the sea slips away again, hundreds of these beige and brown bananas sunbathe on distant sandbanks, between ribbons of blue water. Blakeney Point celebrates its centenary this month. This pristine four-mile spit of shingle and sand in Norfolk is, of course, far older, but its purchase by the National Trust 100 years ago marked the beginning of a radical movement in Britain: instead of protecting specific species, the new environmentalists recognised that entire "reserves" must be created to save our wildlife. As the country's first coastal nature reserve, Blakeney was also the British birthplace of the science of ecology, the urge to understand how species relate to each other. There are now thousands of nature reserves in Britain, but some argue they are an anachronism in an era of climate change and global environmental catastrophe. After Capitalism: 'In the anti-worlds of daily struggles is where the world beyond capitalism is to be found' - video.
Europe looks to open up Greenland for natural resources extraction | Environment. Europe is looking to open a new frontier in the ever more urgent quest for new natural resources – the pristine icy wastes of Greenland. Oil and gas have been the focus of exploitation so far – but the EU sees just as much potential in a massive opening up of mining operations across the world's biggest island, according to Antonio Tajani, the European commission's vice-president and one of the most powerful politicians in the union. He called the move "raw material diplomacy". Latest satellite data reveal that 97% of the surface of the Greenland ice sheet underwent surface melting over four exceptionally warm days in July, indicating natural resources will become more available for extraction in the coming decades. The potential gold rush is being welcomed by some in Greenland, but has raised fears of environmental damage, pollution and despoliation across the Arctic that could destroy one of the world's last wildernesses.
He said: "This is raw material diplomacy. Climate change study forces sceptical scientists to change minds | Environment. Prof Richard Muller considers himself a converted sceptic following the study's surprise results. Photograph: Dan Tuffs for the Guardian The Earth's land has warmed by 1.5C over the past 250 years and "humans are almost entirely the cause", according to a scientific study set up to address climate change sceptics' concerns about whether human-induced global warming is occurring.
Prof Richard Muller, a physicist and climate change sceptic who founded the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (Best) project, said he was surprised by the findings. "We were not expecting this, but as scientists, it is our duty to let the evidence change our minds. " He added that he now considers himself a "converted sceptic" and his views had undergone a "total turnaround" in a short space of time. "Our results show that the average temperature of the Earth's land has risen by 2.5F over the past 250 years, including an increase of 1.5 degrees over the most recent 50 years. Greenland ice sheet melted at unprecedented rate during July | Environment. The Greenland ice sheet on July 8, left, and four days later on the right. In the image, the areas classified as 'probable melt' (light pink) correspond to those sites where at least one satellite detected surface melting.
The areas classified as 'melt' (dark pink) correspond to sites where two or three satellites detected surface melting. Photograph: Nasa The Greenland ice sheet melted at a faster rate this month than at any other time in recorded history, with virtually the entire ice sheet showing signs of thaw. The rapid melting over just four days was captured by three satellites.
It has stunned and alarmed scientists, and deepened fears about the pace and future consequences of climate change. In a statement posted on Nasa's website on Tuesday, scientists admitted the satellite data was so striking they thought at first there had to be a mistake. "This was so extraordinary that at first I questioned the result: was this real or was it due to a data error? " Rachel Carson and the legacy of Silent Spring | Science | The Observer. Near a brook in south-east England, the bird-spotter JA Baker stumbled on a grim little scene in 1961. "A heron lay in frozen stubble. Its wings were stuck to the ground by frost. Its eyes were open and living, the rest of it was dead. As I approached, I could see its whole body craving into flight. The bird's plight was clearly unnatural. The UK was not alone. Several causes were proposed – poisons, viruses or other disease agents – but no one had a definitive answer or seemed sure of the cause – with one exception: the biologist Rachel Carson.
"Sprays, dusts and aerosols are now applied almost universally to farms, gardens, forests and homes – non-selective chemicals that have the power to kill every insect, the 'good' and the 'bad', to still the song of the birds and the leaping of fish in the streams, to coat the leaves with a deadly film and to linger on in the soil – all this though the intended target may be only a few weeds or insects," she wrote. It was a brave effort. McKinsey trampled on the rainforests – it can't be trusted | John Sauven. This week, the Guardian uncovered evidence of global consultancy firm McKinsey profiting from the shake-up to the NHS.
At the same time, McKinsey was paid £250,000 a year by the UK government for advice on the transition towards health secretary Andrew Lansley's vision for the service. McKinsey's refusal to address public concerns about potential conflicts of interest and value for money when operating in the public policy arena is not new. Moreover, the NHS is not the only life-support system that it is involved in dismantling.
This year, we at Greenpeace completed an in-depth investigation into McKinsey's work on forests for the governments of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Guyana, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. The work was paid for by donors like the UK government and did not represent value for money. McKinsey's advice was supposed to show forest countries how to reduce their emissions from deforestation as part of global efforts to tackle climate change. 20 predictions for the next 25 years | Society | The Observer. 1 Geopolitics: 'Rivals will take greater risks against the US' No balance of power lasts forever.
Just a century ago, London was the centre of the world. Britain bestrode the world like a colossus and only those with strong nerves (or weak judgment) dared challenge the Pax Britannica. That, of course, is all history, but the Pax Americana that has taken shape since 1989 is just as vulnerable to historical change. In the 1910s, the rising power and wealth of Germany and America splintered the Pax Britannica; in the 2010s, east Asia will do the same to the Pax Americana. The 21st century will see technological change on an astonishing scale. By 2030, the world will be more complicated, divided between a broad American sphere of influence in Europe, the Middle East and south Asia, and a Chinese sphere in east Asia and Africa. Nevertheless, America will probably remain the world's major power. 2 The UK economy: 'The popular revolt against bankers will become impossible to resist'
Global warming study finds no grounds for climate sceptics' concerns | Environment. The world is getting warmer, countering the doubts of climate change sceptics about the validity of some of the scientific evidence, according to the most comprehensive independent review of historical temperature records to date. Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, found several key issues that sceptics claim can skew global warming figures had no meaningful effect. The Berkeley Earth project compiled more than a billion temperature records dating back to the 1800s from 15 sources around the world and found that the average global land temperature has risen by around 1C since the mid-1950s. This figure agrees with the estimate arrived at by major groups that maintain official records on the world's climate, including Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), and the Met Office's Hadley Centre, with the University of East Anglia, in the UK.
'Whale war' kicks off as Japan sends strengthened fleet to Antarctica | Environment. As the Steve Irwin approached the equator last week, word that Japan would be sending a strengthened whaling fleet to Antarctica next month reached the bridge of the old Aberdeen-built customs vessel. The crew of activists on board cheered, as their veteran leader, Captain Paul Watson, resigned himself to his eighth "whale war" among the icebergs and 100mph winds of the Southern ocean. Watson, on what is nearly his 350th voyage in nearly 40 years defending whales and other marine wildlife at the helm of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, is sending three ships to intercept, chase and harass the Japanese.
He promises "aggressive non-violence", while the Japanese, still smarting from last year's humiliation when their fleet took only a fifth of its planned whale catch, say they will heighten security and take an armed government fisheries patrol vessel. But it was Australia, which fired the first diplomatic shots, this week condemning Japan and urging it not to send its fleet. The global economy is broken. Here's how to fix it | Tony Greenham. The only surprise about Saturday's occupation of the London Stock Exchange is that it took so long to happen. No doubt the government and banking lobby was hoping that the final report of the Vickers commission last month would draw a line under so-called banker bashing in the UK. As Basil Fawlty might have put it: "I crashed the global economy once, but I think I got away with it.
" So why won't popular protests go away? Here's why: there has been no public inquiry into the causes of the crash. No calling to account of those who drove the ship on to the rocks. No assertion of the public interest over financial markets. No subordination of banks to the needs of the real economy. Why should we be surprised that these protests are springing up, and why should we expect them to dissipate until these failures are addressed? The global protest movement that started on Wall Street chose its nexus well.
Massive injections of public money three years ago saved the system without fixing it. Obama administration announces massive coal mining expansion | Environment. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced on Tuesday an enormous expansion in coal mining that threatens to increase U.S. climate pollution by an amount equivalent to more than half of what the United States currently emits in a year. A statement from Wild Earth Guardians, Sierra Club, and Defenders of Wildlife put the announcement in perspective: When burned, the coal threatens to release more than 3.9 billion tons of heat-trapping carbon dioxide, equal to the annual emissions from 300 coal-fired power plants, further cementing the United States as a leading contributor to climate disruption ... Salazar's announcement is a stark contrast to his call for clean energy. Interior, for example, touted that in 2010, 4,000 megawatts of renewable energy development were authorized.
And in today's press conference, Secretary Salazar announced Interior's intent to authorize more than 12,000 megawatts of renewable energy by the end of next year ... Biofuels boom in Africa as British firms lead rush on land for plantations | Environment. British firms have acquired more land in Africa for controversial biofuel plantations than companies from any other country, a Guardian investigation has revealed. Half of the 3.2m hectares (ha) of biofuel land identified – in countries from Mozambique to Senegal – is linked to 11 British companies, more than any other country.
Liquid fuels made from plants – such as bioethanol – are hailed by some as environmentally-friendly replacements for fossil fuels. Because they compete for land with crop plants, biofuels have also been linked to record food prices and rising hunger. There are also fears they can increase greenhouse gas emissions. A market has been created by British and EU laws requiring the blending of rising amounts of biofuels into petrol and diesel, but the rules were condemned as unethical and "backfiring badly" in April by a Nuffield Council on Bioethics commission. Crest Global Green Energy has the largest recorded landholding, 900,000ha in Mali, Guinea and Senegal.
Climate 'trutherism': the conspiracy theory that's no joke | Sahil Kapur. UK's ex-science chief predicts century of 'resource' wars | Environment.