Environment news

• Saving Britain’s food supply: a manifesto to keep food on the table

  29-07-2017 22:25 via theguardian.com
  Brexit imperils the health of a nation whose food supply was already under threat from climate change and shifting global markets. Here, the Observer’s restaurant critic outlines how we might avert disasterA few weeks ago, I was approached by an official at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. She told me the secretary of state, Michael Gove, was holding a round table discussion for ‘innovative thinkers’ on 25 July to give him ‘food for thought in the e
  
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• Carmakers’ electric dreams depend on supplies of rare minerals

  29-07-2017 17:00 via theguardian.com
  With mining of cobalt and other elements politically and ethically charged, the hunt for alternatives is onBritain last week joined France in pledging to ban sales of petrol and diesel cars by 2040 in an attempt to cut toxic vehicle emissions. The move to battery-powered vehicles has been a long time coming. Environmental campaigners claim that charging cars and vans from the grid, like a laptop, is sure to be cleaner than petrol or diesel power. The government agrees and says it will invest mor
  
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• UK farmers are addicted to subsidy, says government adviser

  29-07-2017 13:24 via theguardian.com
  Oxford economist Dieter Helm said that the agriculture industry enjoys benefits ‘nobody else in the economy gets’Tax breaks for farmers have caused a “subsidy addiction” and are used to avoid inheritance tax, a government adviser has claimed.Economist Dieter Helm, chair of the Natural Capital Committee, which advises the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), called for a review of the current taxation rules for farmers and said the agricultural secto
  
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• The bees’ needs: how beekeeping changed the way I garden | Alys Fowler

  29-07-2017 12:00 via theguardian.com
  Alys Fowler used to worry what people thought about her garden; now she puts her 30,000 insects firstI like flowers, bees like flowers. I like honey, bees like honey. I don’t much like being out on cold, wet days, and neither do they. We’re a match made in floral heaven. There have been times when I’ve blundered through our relationship, but getting honeybees made a lot of sense – and changed my relationship with honey.It seemed the next logical step in growing your own.
  
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• Cousteau country: scuba diving in Papua New Guinea

  29-07-2017 08:00 via theguardian.com
  With a new film about Jacques Cousteau to be released, the Walindi Plantation Resort, the dive centre and institute he inspired, is still the first word in marine conservation. Plus: 5 more Cousteau divespotsThe moments before a dive are often awkward. I waddle across the stern of the boat, laden with heavy gear, my feet stupid with rubbery fins. A swell threatens to topple me. A lone eagle, seeking amusement, soars across from the jungled volcanic shore of New Britain, one of Papua New Guinea&r
  
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• Close encounters at the top of the lake

  29-07-2017 06:30 via theguardian.com
  Windermere, Lake District There’s a bullfinch aboard the steamer, and intriguing creatures in the waterThe moment my hands catch the bird so I can free it from the ship’s capacious saloon, I become dizzy. As the Windermere steamer Swan reverses out from the pier at Bowness and manoeuvres around it feels to me as though it’s the lake dotted with sailing craft and leafy islands that is pirouetting, not the boat itself.The moment passes. My diminutive charge’s heart pumps in
  
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• Summer song

  29-07-2017 02:20 via bbc.co.uk
  How field crickets are being brought back from the brink of extinction by a unique conservation project.
  
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• Cricket's summer song making a comeback

  29-07-2017 02:20 via bbc.co.uk
  How field crickets are being brought back from the brink of extinction by a unique conservation project.
  
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• Carmichael coalmine protests: 'Hang on, is it because it’s an Indian company?'

  29-07-2017 00:45 via theguardian.com
  Adani executive wonders if prejudice against Indians is behind opposition to proposed Carmichael coalmine in QueenslandAn Adani executive has said he was flummoxed by the controversy attached to the company’s coal ambitions, which led him to wonder whether prejudice against an Indian company in Australia was at play.Muthuraj Guruswamy said hackers trying to compromise Adani’s jobs website were the latest hostile distraction, just as the company launched a $1.4m national advertising c
  
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