-
Study identified eight areas that can sustain a population and government has given £1m for recovery programme
“The world is grown so bad that wrens make prey where eagles dare not perch.” So wrote Shakespeare in Richard III, in a line of social commentary that feels ever more relevant with age.
A note of good news then, in a world of so much bad, that the eagles the Bard was probably referring to could finally be reintroduced to England after more than 150 years.
Continue reading...
-
Developing countries face possible shelving of crucial green action plan at IMF and World Bank spring meetings
Governments desperate for cash to protect their citizens from the growing impacts of the climate crisis are being put in a “beyond absurd” situation this week at global finance talks: they are being urged not to mention the climate, even as they address the current oil crisis.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank Group (WBG) spring meetings take place this week amid a fragile ceasefire in Iran and upended geopolitics. One of the priorities was to forge a new “climate change action plan” (CCAP) for the world’s biggest provider of funds to developing countries, to replace the current strategy, which expires in June.
Continue reading...
-
Experts say climate pattern could supercharge extreme weather events and push temperatures to record highs
There is a high likelihood that the phenomenon known as “El Niño” will emerge this summer – and it could be exceptionally strong. A so-called “super El Niño” could supercharge extreme weather events and push global temperatures to record heights next year if it develops, according to experts.
Meteorologists are keeping a close eye on the climate patterns developing in the Pacific Ocean that will enable stronger predictions about what’s to come in the year ahead.
Continue reading...
-
Ludwig Koch was once as influential as David Attenborough is today – a new film by his granddaughter sheds light on a tragic event in the naturalist’s life in Berlin before he fled the Nazis
In his lifetime, pioneering German sound recordist Ludwig Koch’s heavily accented voice was as familiar to British audiences as David Attenborough’s is today. His tireless passion for capturing birdsong and bringing it first into German and, after his exile from Nazi Germany, British homes via sound books and BBC radio, made him a household name from the late 1930s onwards.
He was celebrated beyond his life, parodied by Peter Sellers (playing Koch observing life at a Glasgow traffic junction) and immortalised in Penelope Fitzgerald’s 1980 novel Human Voices, about the wartime BBC, which depicts Koch’s assiduous approach to capturing natural sounds and indirectly highlights how the organisation benefited from new voices like his.
Continue reading...
-
Bowlees, Teesdale: It’s been a long road to this point, but now these pots of rare rock whitebeam are ready for the soil
My route along Teesdale is full of distractions. I stop twice, awed by the sight of 30 black grouse in a field, then to watch displaying peewits, tumbling and diving with sweet, airy calls. This is the heart of the North Pennines national landscape (NPNL), and its visitor centre at Bowlees is in a 19th-century Methodist chapel. The Bow Lee beck runs close by, winding through a wooded dene, then dropping down Summerhill Force, the pretty waterfall camouflaging Gibson’s Cave.
A small limestone quarry by the beck resounds to the cascading songs of chaffinches, spring warmth held within its rocky bowl. The ledges of these cliffs, inaccessible to sheep and rabbits, have been chosen for the planting of a rare native tree, the rock whitebeam, Sorbus rupicola. Seed was collected in autumn 2022 from a craggy site by the fast-flowing Tees, carefully packed, and sent to the Millennium Seed Bank managed by Kew Gardens. Further seed was germinated in the small wildflower nursery at Bowlees so that rock whitebeam could be re-established in Teesdale.
Continue reading...
-
Charity advises replacing seed and nut feeders, where birds gather, with small amounts of mealworms, fat balls or suet
Garden birds should not be fed seeds and nuts over the summer months, the RSPB has said, in an attempt to reduce the spread of avian diseases.
Bird lovers are being urged to take down their bird feeders between May and October to help birds such as the greenfinch, whose numbers have plummeted after the spread of trichomonosis, a parasitic disease transmitted more easily when birds cluster around feeders in the warmer months.
Continue reading...
-
Brigg, Lincolnshire: The peas are in and next up are maize and wildflowers, but with our fuel use running to 50,000 litres a year, I have one eye on the news
Spring has sprung, and with warming soils we start planting our more delicate crops such as peas. With the chatter of skylarks in the background, we slowly drill our way across this 15-hectare field using a three-metre precision drill that carefully places the seed. Six weeks ago, this would have cost £7.50 per hectare on fuel, now it’s £15 per hectare – a severe shock to the farm’s finances.
It’s not often that an arable farmer’s mind is so focused on global events, but our fuel use tops 50,000 litres a year and the Middle East conflict is having profound consequences. Thankfully, we’re partly protected. Over the last seven or eight years, we have transitioned to a low-disturbance approach to establishing crops, disturbing the top inch only. This means less tractor use and healthier soil – a big priority here. Fertiliser prices are also a worry. Common practice is to buy a year’s worth every June, but prices are skyrocketing, and there’s no UK production any more to help us out.
Continue reading...
-
In Artemisa, the country’s agricultural heartland, sanctions and fuel shortages have made a tough life almost impossible
Abraham Rodríguez stares at the corn furrows he must plough before the end of the day. It is not even noon in Artemisa, Cuba, but the sun beats down hard and he’s already tired: working the land is a tough job. He has done it for almost half his life, since he was 13 and his mother got a divorce. He is turning 26 this year.
Farming has always been hard, he says, but now it is almost impossible to sustain. “I make 1,200 pesos (£1.80) a day, so I have to work two days to buy a bottle of oil.”
Continue reading...
-
Swedish retailer continued to advertise partnership with Soly and failed to offer me any advice
I am one ofmany left thousands of pounds out of pocket after signing upfor solar panels via Ikea’s website late lastyear.
Ikea had partnered with the European installer Soly, and the fact the panels were being advertisedvia such a well-known company gave us confidence.
Continue reading...
-
From California to Alabama, people of color are building communal spaces rooted in care and tradition
Zappa Montag steps outside his home to a thicket of redwoods, Pacific madrones and oak trees. Dozens of fruit trees dot the 76 hectares (189 acres), along with a large garden replete with squash, cucumbers, tomatoes, beans, corn and peppers. Nearby, a small stream runs through a valley surrounded by hills. At Black to the Land, the ecovillage in Boonville, California, Montag and five other Black people steward the land off the grid, relying on well water and powered solely by solar panels. The intentional community, as it’s called, is located in a rural area 115 miles (185km) north of San Francisco. Montag said it was an effort to “reverse-gentrify the country”.
Black Americans and Indigenous people have long gathered in intentional communities, defined as small groups of people who live in the same area based on shared values and a common vision. They come in many forms, including co-housing spaces in urban environments where people have their own units and share communal spaces.
Continue reading...
