M&S to charge food shoppers for plastic bags

Marks and Spencer will charge food customers 5p for every plastic carrier bag they use from May, the Guardian reports.

The store announced that the charge was aimed at reducing demand for the bags, which campaigners say damage the environment.

Marks and Spencer said money raised from the levy would be spent on improving parks and play areas across the country.

Around 13bn plastic bags, which experts say can take up to 1,000 years to decay, are given free to UK shoppers every year.

The store will give all food customers free long-lasting bags from early April for one month.

From the source:

Marks & Spencer press release

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UK MPs back limited badger cull

MPs have backed calls for a limited cull of badgers to help prevent the spread of TB in cattle, writes Pallab Ghosh, BBC News science correspondent.

A report by the environment select committee says the action should be focused on TB hotspots and form part of a package of control measures.

About 4,000 herds were affected by the disease last year, predominantly in the south west of England.

That is up nearly 18% on 2006 and left unchecked the disease is likely to spread across all of the UK by 2012.

If that were to happen, it would probably cost the taxpayer £1bn to tackle and to compensate farmers.

The RSPCA (Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals), on the other hand, described the MPs' suggestion as "muddled and flying in the face of sound scientific judgement".

The society's director of animal welfare promotion, John Rolls, said: "The evidence shows a policy of badger culling is unsustainable, uneconomic and could even worsen the spread of bovine TB."

From the source:

EFRA Select Committee report - "Badgers and TB: the final report of the Independent Scientific Group" (PDF)

EFRA Select Committee press release

RSPCA press release


Other media:

Daily Telegraph

Guardian

Independent

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China's biggest plastic bag maker closes

China's largest plastic bag maker has closed following a state-led environmental campaign discouraging plastics use, the Daily Mail reports.

China launched a surprise crackdown on plastic bags in January, banning production of ultra-thin bags and forbidding its supermarkets and shops from handing out free carrier bags from 1 June.

Suiping Huaqiang Plastic Company, owned by Guangzhou-based Nanqiang Plastic Industrial Ltd and employing 20,000 workers, stopped production in mid-January.

"Our factory has officially closed, we are in the process of liquidation and there are very few people on hand," an employee said.

The pressure from the crackdown proved too much for the plastics giant which produces 250,000 tons of plastic bags valued at 2.2bn yuan (£156m) annually.

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US willing to back binding climate 'obligations'

US officials say the nation is ready to accept "binding international obligations" on reducing greenhouse gas emissions if other nations do the same, writes BBC News’ Richard Black.

The comments came in a news conference in Paris given by James Connaughton and Daniel Price, environmental and economics advisers to President Bush.

The US hopes the world's major economies will conclude a "leaders' declaration" before the July G8 summit.

There was no indication of how much the US might be prepared to cut emissions.

But the Bush administration is clearly looking for some kind of binding commitment from major developing countries such as China, India and Brazil.

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South Africa to allow elephant culling

The decision by the South African government to end the moratorium on elephant culling has received a great deal of coverage around the world.

A report in the New Zealand Herald said the decision to lift the decade-old ban has angered conservation groups, which say killing the beasts should only be used as a last resort.

But after a lengthy consultation on the issue, the government believes possible relocation or expansion of areas for elephants, will only delay the inevitable.

Targets on the number of elephants to be culled have yet to be finalised, but the government has outlined strict conditions.

The elephants will be killed quickly by experienced marksmen and entire families would be culled together to reduce trauma.

As for the trade in ivory, negotiations are still ongoing and until a decision has been made tusks will be stockpiled.

From the source:

South African government's media announcement


Other media:

CNN

Associated Press (AP)

Washington Post

ABC News

Scotsman

New York Times

The Australian

The Independent

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'Doomsday vault' opens for business

Leading dignitaries have attended the official opening of a 'doomsday' seed vault built 130m (426ft) inside a mountain on a remote Arctic island, the BBC News website reports.

Norwegian Prime Minister Jen Stoltenberg and Nobel Prize winner Wangari Maathai placed the first seeds in the depository during the ceremony.

The vault, designed to withstand all natural and human disaster, will house samples of all known food crops.

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault took 12 months and cost £5m to construct.

During the ceremony, Mr Stoltenberg unlocked the vault before being joined by environmental campaigner Ms Maathai to place the first consignment of seeds in the -18C (0F) freezer.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso was among the 300 guests to attend the event.

The collection and its maintenance is being organised by the Global Crop Diversity Trust, which has responsibility of ensuring the "conservation of crop diversity in perpetuity".

"Crop diversity will soon prove to be our most potent and indispensable resource for addressing climate change, water and energy supply constraints, and for meeting the food needs of a growing population," predicted Cary Fowler, the Trust's executive director.

From the source:

Global Crop Diversity Trust press release (PDF)

Other media:

Nature

Reuters

Washington Post

Guardian

AFP

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Strong wind destroys turbine

Dramatic footage shows the moment a wind turbine in Denmark fell victim to high winds.



The video, posted on the YouTube website, revealed that the 60-metre structure was destroyed as a result of its braking mechanism failing.

When strong gusts blow, wind farm operators activate the braking mechanisms on turbines in order to protect them from being damaged.

As the video above shows, failure to do so can result in catastrophic consequences.

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Virgin flight for biofuel-powered commercial aircraft

A great deal of media attention was focused on an empty Virgin flight from London Heathrow to Amsterdam, no doubt pleasing Sir Richard Branson.

He described the one-hour flight on Sunday as a “vital breakthrough” for the global aviation industry.

The Boeing 747 had one of its four engines connected to an independent biofuel tank that it said could provide 20% of the engine's power, the BBC News website explained.

The three other engines were capable of powering the plane on conventional fuel had there been a problem.

The company said the babassu tree, native to Brazil, and the coconuts did not compete with staple food sources and came from existing mature plantations.

Both products are commonly used in cosmetics and household paper products.

Unsurprisingly, environmental campaign groups were less impressed and called the flight a publicity stunt.

They said that the airline should concentrate its efforts on the real problem – the rapid expansion of airports to meet the growing demand for flights.

At the time of writing, it is interesting to note that the Virgin group has not published details of the flight on its own website – either as a press release or a news feature.

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Wheat: high prices, low reserves

As wheat prices hit a new high and global reserves reach a record low, the head of the UN World Food Programme (WFP) says that it may be necessary to ration distributions, reports the FT.

Josette Sheeran, WFP executive director, said the agency would look at “cutting the food rations or even the number or people reached” if donors did not provide more money to cover the 40% rise in the cost of the grain over the past 12 months.

Other agricultural commodities are also seeing a sharp rise in prices, including soyabean and rice.

The sharp price increases cannot be blamed entirely on the growth in demand from the biofuels sector, say analysts. Recent poor harvests in places such as Australia and China have squeezed supplies, they say.

Another pressure on the price of wheat is the growing demand for meat from increasingly affluent sectors in China and India, as more people switch away from grain-based diets.

From the source:

WFP – Food prices threaten nutritional crisis


Other media:

BBC – Fresh records for price of wheat

Guardian – We are fighting a losing battle, admits UN

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Naples' rubbish problem continues to fester

As thousands of tonnes of rotting rubbish sits uncollected on the streets of Naples, it has emerged that Italian officials have approached German firms to help shift the backlog, writes South African News 24 website.

The European Commission has given Italy until the end of February to sort out the problem, or face legal action for breaching EU waste management guidelines.

The problem began in the first-half of 2007 as landfills sites for the waste from the one million residents of the southern Italian city reached full capacity.

Local protests over planned incineration plants compounded the problem. With nowhere for it to go, the rubbish remained uncollected and began to pile up in the streets.

Attempts to ship waste to Sardinia resulted in clashes between some islanders and police. In January, six people were arrested as they attempted to set fire to waste containers, angered by a politician’s assertion that other Italian regions had an obligation to take refuse from the beleaguered city.

News 24 says representatives from German disposal companies were assessing how much incinerator capacity might be available following the request for help from the Italian Embassy in Berlin.

Picture gallery from Naples Indymedia

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Hurricanes: more people, more wealth, not stronger storms

The economic cost of hurricanes in the US has increased as a result of greater population, infrastructure, and wealth along coastal areas, not because there have been more intense storms, a study says.

The US National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Agency's (Noaa) paper, published in Natural Hazards Review, reported that economic hurricane damage in the US had been doubling every 10 to 15 years.

And it added that if more people continued to move to the hurricane-prone coastline, future economic hurricane losses could be far greater than previously seen.

Read the full report here (PDF)

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Climate change 'harming fish stocks'

The supply of fish stocks will plummet as the world warms, says a United Nations report.

The results will affect millions of people in developing nations who depend on fishing for their livelihoods, according to the "Dead in the Water" report, published by the UN's Environment Programme (Unep).

Rising greenhouse gas emissions threaten at least three-quarters of key fishing grounds, and this could affect the 2.6bn people who derive their protein from seafood, the study notes.

The ocean’s natural pumping systems, which bring nutrients to fisheries and also help flush out wastes and pollution, are under threat.

Additionally, increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will raise oceans' acid levels, harming corals as well as planktonic organisms at the base of the food chain.

Download the report here (6MB PDF)

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Greenland ice sheet feels the heat

The surface temperature of Greenland's ice sheet has been rising as a result of warming air temperatures, a Nasa study has concluded.

Though the loss of the whole ice sheet is unlikely, the researchers say, melt water from the ice mass has already contributed in part to 20th Century sea level rise of about two millimetres each year.

The team warns that future melt has the potential to impact people and economies across the globe.

The scientists used Nasa satellite technologies to explore the behaviour of the ice sheet, revealing a relationship between changes at the surface and below.

The findings appear in the Journal of Glaciology.


Read the entire paper here (PDF)

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Now that's what I call global warming...

Earth faces being cremated inside the sun unless future generations work out how to change its orbit, writes Australia's appropriately named Herald Sun.
New calculations by University of Sussex astronomers predict Earth will not only be burned to a cinder, but will be swallowed up by the sun.

Professor Robert Smith and his team had previously calculated that Earth might escape ultimate destruction.

But new calculations now take into account the effect of drag caused by the outer atmosphere of the dying sun.

But no need to panic just yet; the researchers have calculated that the planet's demise will happen 7.6 billion years in the future.

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Bluetongue risk ‘returns to UK in April’

Livestock farmers in the UK will again face the risk of bluetongue infecting their herds from 21 April, writes Pallab Ghosh, BBC News science correspondent.

Government scientists have studied the lifecycle of the midges that transmit the disease, and have developed a map that predicts how the disease will spread across England and Wales during 2008.

They suggest that farms in Kent will be the first to be at risk, from 21 April – this is before government vets will have access to a vaccine, which will not be available until the end of May.

From the source:

Defra bluetongue information

Meanwhile, Earth Times (link) reports that the German government has taken the decision to vaccinate its herds against bluetongue, which has been spreading north from the Mediterranean region.

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Map pinpoints disease ‘hotspots’

A detailed map highlighting the world's hotspots for emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) has been released, writes Mark Kinver, BBC News science and nature reporter.

It uses data spanning 65 years and shows the majority of these new diseases come from wildlife.

Scientists say conservation efforts that reduce conflicts between humans and animals could play a key role in limiting future outbreaks.

Writing in Nature, they said their map revealed that global anti-EID resources had been poorly allocated in the past.

From the source:

ZSL press release

University of Georgia

Earth Institute (Columbia Uni) press release

Other media:

Science Daily coverage

Telegraph coverage

Reuters coverage

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US ends protection for wolves in three states

The Bush administration has announced an end to federal protection for grey wolves in three US states, writes the New York Times’ Kirk Johnson.

Officials have concluded that the wolves are reproductively robust enough to survive.

A coalition of wildlife and environmental groups dismissed the government’s claims and announced plans for a lawsuit to reverse the decision, which is to take effect next month.

Advocates for the animals said there were too few wolves to make a genetically sound population.

(Ed - it is worth keeping an eye open for the Bush administration's decision on whether polar bears should be listed as endangered. It is expected soon, perhaps as early as next week)

From the source:

US Fish and Wildlife Service press release

Q&A (PDF) from the US FWS about its decision

Other media:

Los Angeles Times coverage

Science Daily coverage

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