It is time to say this privatisation zealotry has been a disaster. March with us and let ministers know – enough is enough
You’ve been lied to, you’ve been misled, you’ve being extorted, you’ve been cheated, and you’ve been abused. For the last 35 years, you have been subject to nothing more than possibly the greatest organised ripoff perpetrated on the British people, and you have had little in return apart from greed, profiteering, financial engineering, political failure and regulatory incompetency. You’ve been had.
Thirty-five years after we were promised a utopian, market-driven vision of greatness, a future in which we would glory in the delights of an unlimited supply of clean water; in which our sewage would be quietly, efficiently collected, treated and disposed of, while our rivers, lakes and seas would teem with an abundant, diverse array of flora and fauna; and to top it all off we would have the cheapest water bills on earth.
Feargal Sharkey is a campaigner and former lead singer of the Undertones
Continue reading...
08/21/2024 - 04:00
08/21/2024 - 02:00
These new proteins could be our best hope of averting catastrophe. But governments are trying to have them banned
For many years, certain car manufacturers sought to obstruct the transition to electric vehicles. It’s not hard to see why: when you have invested heavily in an existing technology, you want to extract every last drop before disinvesting. But devious as in some cases these efforts were, they seem almost innocent in comparison with the concerted programme by a legacy industry and its tame politicians to suppress a far more important switch: the essential transition away from livestock farming.
Animal farming ranks alongside fossil fuel production as one of the two most destructive industries on Earth. It’s not just the vast greenhouse gas emissions and the water and air pollution it causes. Even more important is the amount of land it requires. Land use is a crucial environmental metric, because every hectare we occupy is a hectare that cannot support wild ecosystems.
George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist
Continue reading...
08/20/2024 - 23:00
Conservationists say the number of hunting licences granted is too high and condemn it as ‘pure trophy hunting’
Sweden has issued licences to kill 20% of its brown bear population in the country’s annual bear hunt, which begins today, despite concerns from conservationists.
Officials have granted licences for just under 500 brown bears to be culled by hunters. That equates to about 20% of the total population, according to official figures, and would bring the number of bears in Sweden down to approximately 2,000 – a drop of almost 40% since 2008.
Continue reading...
08/20/2024 - 22:07
Go-ahead given for first stage of $30bn SunCable project, which minister says will be ‘transformational’ for Northern Territory
Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates
Get our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcast
The Australian government has given the green light to the first stages of what it describes as the country’s “biggest renewable energy project ever” – an ambitious proposal to send energy from a solar farm in the Northern Territory outback to Singapore via subsea cables.
The environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, said the approval under conservation law of SunCable’s $30bn-plus Australia-Asia Power Link was a “massive step towards making Australia a renewable energy superpower” and that the project would be “economically and socially transformational” for the NT.
Continue reading...
08/20/2024 - 19:19
Pro-brumby group had filed legal action against the NSW environment minister in a bid to stop the aerial culling
Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates
Get our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcast
The New South Wales government’s shooting of brumbies from helicopters in Kosciuszko national park can continue after a judge dismissed a challenge by a local non-profit group.
The pro-brumby Snowy Mountains Bush Users Group filed a legal action against the NSW environment minister, Penny Sharpe, in the state’s supreme court in June in a bid to stop the aerial culling, which was approved in October 2023.
Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup
Continue reading...
08/20/2024 - 18:01
England’s controversial eradication scheme may have caused higher rates of disease in surrounding areas, research shows
England’s controversial badger cull may have increased the risk of bovine tuberculosis (bTB) among herds in neighbouring areas, according to new research.
Researchers at the University of Oxford found that although badger culling reduced incidences of tuberculosis in the areas where it took place, in neighbouring areas the risk of the disease in cattle increased by almost a third.
Continue reading...
08/20/2024 - 12:41
Turnout at blood drives affected as summers get hotter and extreme weather causes cancellations, Red Cross warns
The climate crisis is threatening the medical blood supply in the US, with this summer’s record heat contributing to an emergency blood shortage, the American Red Cross has warned.
As summers in the US get progressively hotter, blood drives across the country to persuade people to donate are facing challenges. In the month of July alone, when more than 130 million Americans were under heat advisory warnings, the American Red Cross said that turnout at almost 100 of its blood drives was affected by the weather.
Continue reading...
08/20/2024 - 11:00
Record sea temperatures in the Mediterranean contributed to waterspout that hit Bayesian
Record temperatures in the Mediterranean Sea this summer contributed to the freak storm that sank a superyacht off the coast of Sicily, with similar extreme events expected to increase in frequency and intensity as the climate crisis tightens its grip, Italian scientists have said.
One person is confirmed to have died and rescuers are searching for six missing people, including the British tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter, Hannah, after the 56-metre Bayesian capsized in the early hours of Monday.
Continue reading...
08/20/2024 - 11:00
South West Water could face prosecution after sewer burst at nearby treatment plant
The Environment Agency is considering legal action against South West Water after the company spilled sewage into the sea at a Devon beach.
Swimmers were told to stay out of the sea at Exmouth beach after a sewer burst on private land on Thursday next to Maer Lane wastewater treatment works.
Continue reading...
08/20/2024 - 10:00
Raising the wind speed at which turbines start spinning could prevent tens of thousands of bat deaths each year, researchers find
Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates
Get our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcast
Australian windfarm operators are being urged to embrace a simple measure used overseas that scientists say could dramatically reduce the number of bats killed by turbines.
Curtailment – lifting the wind speed at which turbines start spinning – is used in some European countries and parts of the US and Canada, but rarely in Australia. A global study published in the journal BioScience found it was an effective way to limit bat deaths.
Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup
Continue reading...