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From power cuts to infrastructure failure, the impact of climate change on US cities will be huge – but many are already innovating to adapt
Between record heat and rain, this summer’s weather patterns have indicated, once again, that the climate is changing.
US cities, where more than 80% of the nation’s population lives, are disproportionately hit by these changes, not only because of their huge populations but because of their existing – often inadequate – infrastructure.
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Conservation groups split on impact of move agreed at international wildlife summit
South Africa has won permission to almost double the number of black rhinos that can be killed as trophies after arguing the money raised will support conservation of the critically endangered species.
The decision was made at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) after receiving support from some African nations and opposition from others.
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You sort your recycling, leave it to be collected – and then what? From councils burning the lot to foreign landfill sites overflowing with British rubbish, Oliver Franklin-Wallis reports on a global waste crisis
An alarm sounds, the blockage is cleared, and the line at Green Recycling in Maldon, Essex, rumbles back into life. A momentous river of garbage rolls down the conveyor: cardboard boxes, splintered skirting board, plastic bottles, crisp packets, DVD cases, printer cartridges, countless newspapers, including this one. Odd bits of junk catch the eye, conjuring little vignettes: a single discarded glove. A crushed Tupperware container, the meal inside uneaten. A photograph of a smiling child on an adult’s shoulders. But they are gone in a moment. The line at Green Recycling handles up to 12 tonnes of waste an hour.
“We produce 200 to 300 tonnes a day,” says Jamie Smith, Green Recycling’s general manager, above the din. We are standing three storeys up on the green health-and-safety gangway, looking down the line. On the tipping floor, an excavator is grabbing clawfuls of trash from heaps and piling it into a spinning drum, which spreads it evenly across the conveyor. Along the belt, human workers pick and channel what is valuable (bottles, cardboard, aluminium cans) into sorting chutes.
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National Farmers’ Union says only farms in south-east England able to start harvest
August’s wet weather has brought this year’s wheat harvest to a “shuddering halt”, the deputy president of the National Farmers’ Union has said.
Guy Smith said farmers outside the south-east of England had been left unable start their harvest their crop because of heavy rainfall this month.
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They destroy sweaters, carpets and even wall insulation – and their population has tripled in five years. But there are ways to quell these insatiable insects
When Janine Christley moved into her new house, she thought buying woollen carpets would be the sustainable option. She had the stairs and two floors of her cottage carpeted, at a cost of thousands of pounds. Then the moths moved in. She first noticed them about four years ago, just a few at first. But then they started devouring the carpets, creating big bare patches. Gradually, Christley has had to rip them up and replace them with synthetic carpet. “I’ve still got woollen carpet in my room and the front room, but there are big holes where they’ve eaten it away,” she says. To a family of moths, it turns out, a wool-carpeted house is essentially an all-you-can-eat restaurant.
“Of course, they’re into clothes as well,” she says. They have eaten woollen jackets and gorged on the bags of wool she keeps for felting projects – as well as the finished works themselves. She has avoided chemical controls, but clothes regularly go into the freezer in an attempt to kill the moths’ eggs. “I’m constantly checking where they might be,” says Christley. “I go into the wardrobe and shake all my clothes regularly because they like to be dark and undisturbed. I check under furniture, swat any I can find. I’m always jumping up to try to catch them; I see them flying around. I’m encouraging spiders in my house now; they’ve got lots of cobwebs and I’m trying to get them to catch the moths.” It has been frustrating – and expensive. “And it’s all been a waste of time.”
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A beached fin whale being circled by sharks and eastern grey kangaroos in a snowstorm are among the standout images in the 2019 Australian Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year awards
• The Australian Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year 2019 is on at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney until 20 October 2019 and the South Australian Museum until 10 November
•The week in wildlife – in pictures
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Giraffes, sharks, glass frogs - and the woolly mammoth - may get boosted protection at summit
From giraffes to sharks, the world’s endangered species could gain better protection at an international wildlife conference.
The triennial summit of Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites), that began on Saturday, will tackle disputes over the conservation of great beasts such as elephants and rhinos, as well as cracking down on the exploitation of unheralded but vital species such as sea cucumbers, which clean ocean floors.
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With an international council now on the brink of declaring the species unsustainable – and Brexit looming – what is the future for one of the nation’s favourite meals?
By 7.30am all the cod at Peterhead fish market had been sold, snapped up by competing buyers wearing thick fleeces, woolly hats and rubber boots against the chill of the vast indoor warehouse.
A gaggle of middle-aged men clutching books of brightly coloured “tallies” followed the auctioneer alongside crates of glassy-eyed fish nestling in ice. With a curt nod or a swift hand gesture, the price was settled, tallies thrown down to indicate the fish’s new owner, and the group moved on. It took less than 10 minutes to dispose of the night’s catch.
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Nation commemorates the once huge Okjokull glacier with plaque that warns action is needed to prevent climate change
Iceland has marked its first-ever loss of a glacier to climate change as scientists warn that hundreds of other ice sheets on the subarctic island risk the same fate.
As the world recently marked the warmest July ever on record, a bronze plaque was mounted on a bare rock in a ceremony on the barren terrain once covered by the Okjökull glacier in western Iceland.
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The astronomer royal and risk specialist on cyber-attacks, pandemics, Brexit and life on Mars
Martin Rees is a cosmologist and astrophysicist who has been the astronomer royal since1995. He is also a co-founder of theCentre for the Study of Existential Risk, Cambridge. His most recent book,Onthe Future: Prospects for Humanity, is published by Princeton.
After Boris Johnson’s recent announcementof an increase in the number of special visas for scientists, Sir Andre Geim accused himof taking scientists “for fools”. Did you feel patronised by the announcement?
I wouldn’t put it that way. Anything that makes it easier to get visas is welcome but won’t remove the serious downsides of Brexit.
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