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US exports to heat British homes
Posted by Guardian: Fiona Harvey, on March 25th, 2013
Guardian: Nearly 2m homes in the UK will be heated by shale gas from the US within five years, under a deal agreed on Monday that is likely to be the first time major exports of the controversial energy source are used in the UK.
The US government has kept a tight rein on exports since the shale gas boom started more than five years ago. But the deal struck by energy company Centrica marks the start of a new era in gas use in the UK, because it opens up the market to cheap supplies from the US, as North...
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Halve meat consumption, scientists urge rich world
Posted by Guardian: Fiona Harvey, on February 18th, 2013
Guardian: People in the rich world should become "demitarians" – eating half as much meat as usual, while stopping short of giving it up – in order to avoid severe environmental damage, scientists have urged, in the clearest picture yet of how farming practices are destroying the natural world.
They said the horsemeat scandal had uncovered the dark side of our lust for meat, which has fuelled a trade in undocumented livestock and mislabelled cheap ready meals. "There is a food chain risk," said Professor...
Fishing campaigners urge MPs to vote for discards reform
Posted by Guardian: Fiona Harvey, on February 5th, 2013
Guardian: Fishing campaigners from across Europe gathered in Strasbourg on Tuesday in a last-ditch attempt to persuade MEPs to ban the wasteful practice of throwing away edible fish at sea. A crucial vote in the European parliament on Wednesday morning will determine the future of "discards", by which fishermen throw fish back – dead – if they catch more than their quota, or catch species for which they have no quota. The practice, a consequence of the current common fisheries policy, results in the waste...
CO2 Emissions Expected to Rise Significantly by 2030
Posted by Guardian: Fiona Harvey, on January 26th, 2013
Guardian: Warnings that the world is headed for "peak oil" -- when oil supplies decline after reaching the highest rates of extraction -- appear "increasingly groundless," BP's chief executive said.
Bob Dudley's remarks came as the company published a study predicting oil production will increase substantially, and that unconventional and high-carbon oil will make up all of the increase in global oil supply to the end of this decade, with the explosive growth of shale oil in the U.S. behind much of the...
Shale offers freedom and security – but it could be a trap
Posted by Guardian: Fiona Harvey, on November 15th, 2012
Guardian: Wars are fought over energy. So vital is it to the economy that the few custodians of the world's oil and gas wealth have the power to determine global booms and recessions.
At last, it seems, a new source of energy might liberate us from this conflict – fossil fuels trapped within dense rock for millennia that we are now able to free, thanks to advances in engineering unthinkable a decade ago, and that are available in countries from Britain to Australia. But those same fossil fuels, much higher...
UK ‘likely to face winter floods’
Posted by Guardian: Fiona Harvey, on November 2nd, 2012
Guardian: The UK must brace itself for a high likelihood of winter floods, the Met Office and the government's flooding watchdog have warned.
Saturated ground around the country, and high river and groundwater levels from the wet summer, will mean that much less rainfall than usual is needed to top up water levels and cause severe flooding, according to the Environment Agency.
There is now a significantly higher risk of flooding this autumn and winter, even with small amounts of rain, so households have...
Big Coal Is Putting Climate Targets Hopelessly Out Of Reach
Posted by Guardian: Fiona Harvey, on October 29th, 2012
Guardian: Coal is enjoying a renaissance, with the highest consumption of the fuel since the late 1960s. The unexpected development threatens to put climate change targets out of reach -- and much of the reason is the rise of a supposedly "green" fuel, natural gas.
The controversial use of shale gas in the US, where it now makes up a quarter of electricity generation, has brought down carbon emissions there -- but the greenhouse gases have simply been exported elsewhere, meaning no net gain for the planet,...
Billions needed to slow loss, report warns
Posted by Guardian: Fiona Harvey, on October 16th, 2012
Guardian: Hundreds of billions of pounds will need to be spent on preserving the world's biodiversity, if the destruction of habitats, species and natural resources is to be slowed, a new report for the United Nations has found.
But the amounts needed are insignificant compared with the costs of allowing the destruction to continue, according to the study. These costs include water scarcity, declining agricultural productivity, climate change and the exhaustion of fish stocks. Taken together, the perils...
Global warming could make washout UK summers the norm, study warns
Posted by Guardian: Fiona Harvey, on October 10th, 2012
Guardian: A repeat of this year's washout summer is the last thing most people want from the English weather – but more of the same could be on the way, and could become the norm, a new study has warned, thanks to human activities warming the climate.
Ice melting in the Arctic has been linked to duller, wetter English summers in a much-anticipated study published online on Wednesday in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
Last month, the extent and volume of the ice cap reached a record low. Experts...
Bill Clinton: cutting use of natural resources would help US economy
Posted by Guardian: Fiona Harvey, on July 13th, 2012
Guardian: Bill Clinton has warned that the US needs to cut its consumption of natural resources if it is to stave off the threats of climate change and rising prices.
The former president said the economy of the world's biggest consumer would recover faster from the recession and financial crises if more effort was made to use resources sustainably.
"We can grow even faster if we use less energy," said Clinton in a conversation with the Guardian at the Resource 2012 conference in Oxford on Friday evening....