Europe ‘can eradicate energy poverty’ by quitting fossil fuels: EU official

By Frédéric Simon | EURACTIV.com
Dec 22, 2021

With clean energy and climate policy reforms, the EU "can actually address energy poverty at the core and get rid of it once and forever," said Adela Tesarova, an official at the European Commission’s energy department. [EURACTIV / YouTube]

While EU member states provide financial support to poor households affected by rising energy bills, the European Commission is focusing on long term solutions like energy efficiency and renewables, which have the potential to “eradicate energy poverty” once and for all, an EU official dealing with the issue has said.

Energy poverty is “a pre-existing problem” to the current energy price hike, which is linked to the inability of people to pay their fossil fuel bills, said Adela Tesarova, an official at the Commission’s energy department.

“We want to avoid that decarbonisation makes this problem worse,” she told a EURACTIV event held earlier this month, saying this is why the EU executive proposed creating a social climate fund worth €72.2 billion for the 2025-2035 period.

The ongoing energy price crisis has put energy poverty in the spotlight, with EU governments scrambling to alleviate the burden on the most vulnerable households with short-term measures such as direct income support.

Around 31 million Europeans are living in energy poverty and are unable to keep their homes adequately warm, according to Eurostat figures.

Direct income support schemes, such as France’s energy vouchers, are supported by the European Commission, which put forward a “toolbox” of measures in October to address rising energy prices in the short term.

For the long term, the Commission tabled “structural measures” to boost energy efficiency and renewables, which will reduce Europe’s dependence on fossil fuels, Tesarova said.

“Moving away from fossil fuels is a way to eradicate energy poverty,” the official said, citing EU programmes helping people to insulate their homes and other initiatives to boost renewables.

“Because if people are not dependent on fossil fuels, we will not have energy poverty,” she said.

EU outlines short and long-term answer to global energy price surge

The European Commission unveiled on Wednesday (13 October) a “toolbox” of measures EU countries will be able to draw from when responding to rising energy prices in the short term, while pointing to an upcoming gas market reform for measures to be considered in the long term.

Despite this, the EU’s response to rising energy prices is creating divisions among EU member states.

EU leaders discussed the topic at a summit earlier this month but could not reach a common position because of disagreements over the bloc’s carbon market, the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS).

Spain and Poland have urged the EU to curb volatile prices on the carbon market by limiting speculative activity, a stance at odds with that of other countries, including Germany.

“The ETS doesn’t work,” Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said after last week’s EU summit, adding that higher carbon costs “are very dangerous” because they push up manufacturing costs and consumer prices.

Pawel Cioch, vice-president of Polish state-owned electricity company PGE, said high energy prices are a major driver of energy poverty.

“This is why the ‘Fit for 55’ package should not only enable the achievement of new European climate targets but also mitigate the negative effect that proposed changes will have on consumer bills,” Cioch said, referring to the EU’s package of clean energy and climate laws tabled earlier this year, which aims for a 55% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.

In the case of the Czech Republic and Slovakia, energy expenditure already exceeds 20% of the average household budget, Cioch pointed out. And in the case of Romania, Hungary, and Bulgaria, the share of energy expenditure is around 15%, he told participants at the EURACTIV event.

If green reforms at the EU level are not accompanied by financial support, he said, energy companies will have no choice but to increase prices in order to secure funding for new investment in clean energy.

“The price increases must take into account the social impacts and should be introduced gradually,” Cioch said. “This is why a reasonable pace towards a climate neutrality which reflects national conditions is of crucial importance, especially now when electricity and gas prices in the EU are very, very high”.

EU energy talks dissolve over carbon, green finance fights

Talks between European Union country leaders on energy policy ended with no agreement on Thursday (16 December), as states squabbled over how to respond to record-high carbon prices and upcoming green investment rules

Niels Fuglsang, a Danish lawmaker from the Socialists and Democrats (S&D) group in the European Parliament, agrees that something must be done to prevent the green transition from pushing up energy prices.

“I believe also as a social democrat that if you don’t do it in a socially just way you will have no green transition at all,” he told participants at the EURACTIV event. “We’ve seen examples of that in France most prominently, with the Yellow Vests protesting against climate policies” which pushed up petrol and diesel prices at the pump, he reminded.

Baiba Miltovica, a rapporteur on the EU Renovation Wave for the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC), an EU consultative body, warned against pushing green policies without at the same time providing financial assistance for people to insulate their homes and switch to clean heating systems.

“Of course we need to exit from fossil fuels,” she said. “But on the other side, there is society” and people who “already faced energy poverty before the energy price crisis,” she cautioned.

Planned EU carbon market reform is 'politically suicidal', warns French MEP

Plans to extend the EU’s carbon market to transport and buildings would be “politically suicidal” and risk triggering social unrest similar to the 2018 Yellow Vests movement in France, warned French MEP Pascal Canfin last week. EURACTIV France reports.

Energy poverty: a systemic issue

According to Dimitri Vergne from consumer organisation BEUC, the whole discussion on energy poverty needs to be reframed.

“Too often the problem of energy poverty is approached as a social policy issue and our point as a consumer group is that it is first and foremost a systemic problem” involving the whole energy system and its infrastructure.

By focusing only on social policy, the EU will mitigate the social impact of rising energy prices on poor consumers but it “will never really tackle the root causes of energy poverty” and give a long-term perspective to solve the problem at its roots, he said.

According to Vergne, the Commission’s proposed ‘Fit for 55’ package of energy and climate laws is the right way forward to achieve that.

“We don’t think that the ‘Fit for 55’ package is a risk to increase energy poverty. What we think is rather the opposite – the ‘Fit for 55’ package is the best opportunity we have to tackle the causes of energy poverty” with ambitious programmes to renovate buildings and switch to clean heating systems.

Speaking on behalf of the European Commission, Adela Tesarova could not agree more.

“We cannot resolve the underlying social issues with energy policy but we can actually address energy poverty at the core and we can get rid of it once and forever,” Tesarova said.

“So let’s do it and let’s use this opportunity we have now when everybody talks about it,” she concluded.


> Watch the full EURACTIV debate on YouTube:

 

How a future U.S. president helped avert nuclear disaster near Canada's capital

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Jimmy Carter was told work in Chalk River, Ont., meant he

likely couldn't have kids. He has 4.

Malcolm Campbell · CBC News · Posted: Dec 22, 2021 

A sign from inside Atomic Energy Canada Ltd., located at Chalk River, Ont., from the 1950s. (CBC Archives)

A viral post from the Historical Society of Ottawa is illuminating a part of the region's past that few in the area — or the country — have ever heard before.

Ben Weiss, co-ordinator of the society's Facebook page and speaker series, recently posted about the world's first nuclear reactor meltdown. And while Chornobyl, Fukushima and Three Mile Island often come to mind when nuclear incidents are brought up, this one happened less than 200 kilometres from the Canadian capital.

Even more interesting is catastrophe was averted, in part, with help from future U.S. president Jimmy Carter.

In December 1952, an experimental nuclear reactor in Chalk River, Ont., about 180 kilometres northwest of Ottawa, "experienced mechanical problems and operator error that led to overheating fuel rods and significant damage to the NRX reactor core," according to a Government of Canada page.

That page goes on to say it was the world's first nuclear reactor incident, but little else about what actually happened.

Using details from an article written by journalist and author Arthur Milnes, Weiss had posted about the Chalk River meltdown last Tuesday night.

"The next morning … I took a look. And all of a sudden, I realize this story has been on fire all night. I assumed people slept at night," he said. "But it was very extraordinary. And it resonated with people."

The historical society's posts generally garner views in the thousands, Weiss said, but this has been "by far" the most-viewed post he's ever put up at close to one million views — and that's just on Facebook.

Milnes, who also published a book about Carter and his wife Rosalynn, said the former U.S. president takes a lot of pride in his involvement in the Chalk River event.

"It's not a topic that most American journalists or anything had much interest in. So when President Carter found out that I wanted to talk about Chalk River, he was just really eager," Milnes said.

"He got to the point where I ran out of questions."

Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter, right, is seen inside the home of author and journalist Arthur Milnes in Kingston, Ont., during a past visit to Canada. (Submitted by Arthur Milnes)

What happened?

The partial meltdown at the facility brought explosions and it was flooded with hundreds of thousands of gallons of water, prompting the Canadian government to turn to its neighbour to the south for assistance.

Carter, a U.S. Navy lieutenant who was working on a nuclear submarine project in Schenectady, N.Y., at the time, was called upon to head north.

"We had the dubious distinction of having one of the first nuclear accidents. And the Americans, obviously, were very interested and … worried," Milnes said.

A view inside the labs at Chalk River, Ont., in the 1950s. (CBC Archives )

Carter led a team of men on the mission, which required the reactor to be shut down, taken apart and replaced. An exact replica of the reactor was built at a playground nearby, with Carter and his troops practising taking it apart and putting it back together as quickly as possible.

When it came time to work on the actual reactor, the men worked in shifts of 90 seconds — the high radioactivity made anything longer extremely dangerous.

"By today's standards, there's no way that would have happened," Milnes said.

"In [Carter's] case, at least, he was lowered into the building … with his wrench, and he had to run over to the reactor casing and he had one screw to turn. That was all the time he had. And then, boom, back up."

Milnes, right, and Carter are seen in Plains, Ga., at the launch of Milnes' book, Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter: A Canadian Tribute. (Submitted by Arthur Milnes)

Milnes said Carter remembered the after-effects of the experience decades later.

"He talks about [it] today. He had radioactive urine for many weeks afterwards. They were tested continuously," he said. "He was told it was likely that he would never have children."

Carter has four children.

After the story was shared so widely, Weiss said people across Canada and North America were reaching out, commenting and following the historical society's Facebook page.

So why does he think it caught so many people's attention?

"Jimmy Carter was the president who saved the day when he was a younger man; it definitely, definitely resonated," Weiss said.

"So they practise everything. And then, as they were actually going in, risking their lives … they were also keeping track of what they were doing on the replica in the playground, as well.

"That's a story we can all understand."

CBC's Journalistic Standards and Practices

 

New Report Calculates Cost of the Most Destructive Climate Disasters of 2021

By IANS

2 days ago

TWC India

Cyclone Yaas triggered a flood situation at Sankrail in Howrah district.

(TOI, BCCL, Kolkata)

A new report by Christian Aid—Counting the cost 2021: A year of climate breakdown—identified 15 of the most destructive climate disasters of the year.

They include some of the disasters that hit rapidly, like Cyclone Yaas, which struck India and Bangladesh in May and caused losses valued at $3 billion in just a few days. Ten of those events cost $1.5 billion or more. These estimates are based only on insured losses, meaning the actual financial costs are likely higher.

Among them is Hurricane Ida, which struck the US in August, costing $65 billion and killing 95 people. July floods in Europe cost $43 billion and killed 240, while floods in China's Henan province caused $17.5 billion of destruction, killed 320 and displaced over a million.

While the report focuses on financial costs, which are usually higher in more affluent countries because they have higher property values and can afford insurance, some of the most devastating extreme weather events in 2021 hit poorer nations, which have contributed little to causing climate change.

Yet, in addition to the financial cost, these extreme weather events have caused severe human suffering from food insecurity, drought and extreme weather events, causing mass displacements and loss of life.

South Sudan has experienced terrible floods, which has seen more than 850,000 people forced to flee their homes, many of whom were already internally displaced. At the same time, East Africa continues to be ravaged by drought, highlighting the injustice of the climate crisis.

Other events took months to unfold, like the Parana river drought in Latin America, which has seen the river, a vital part of the region's economy, at its lowest level in 77 years and impacted lives and livelihoods in Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay.

Four of the ten most costly events occurred in Asia, with floods and typhoons costing a combined $24 billion. But the impact of extreme weather was felt all over the world.

Australia suffered floods in March, which displaced 18,000 people and saw damage worth $2.1 billion, while floods in Canada's British Colombia led to $7.5 billion in damage and 15,000 people having to flee their homes.

Insurance and financial loss data on the recent tornadoes in the US is incomplete, so it is not included in this report but may be included in next year's study.

Worryingly such climate devastation is set to continue without action to cut emissions. Insurer Aon warns that 2021 is expected to be the sixth time global natural catastrophes have crossed the $100 billion insured loss threshold. All six have happened since 2011 and 2021 will be the fourth in five years.

The report also highlights slow-developing crises such as the drought in the Chad Basin that has seen Lake Chad shrink by 90 per cent since the 1970s and threatens the lives and livelihoods of millions of the world's poorest who live in the region.

These extreme events highlight the need for concrete climate action. The Paris Agreement set the goal of keeping temperature rise to below 1.5 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels, yet the outcomes from COP26 in Glasgow do not currently leave the world on track to meet this goal which is why much more urgent action is required.

**

The above article has been published from a wire source with minimal modifications to the headline and text.

Scotland Ends Coal Power With A Bang


Featured image by Scottish Power.

ByJennifer Sensiba

Scotland recently demolished its last coal-fired power station, ending coal’s reign in the country with a literal bang – ending decades of reliance on the emissions-heavy fossil fuel.

“Today’s event is a symbolic reminder that we have ended coal-fired power generation in Scotland, as we work in a fair and just way towards becoming a Net Zero nation by 2045.” First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said, right after pushing the button that set off the explosives. “Our goal is to generate 50% of overall energy consumption from renewable sources by 2030, and Scotland’s energy sector is well placed to deliver on the key investments in renewables, hydrogen and energy storage required to achieve this.”

The tallest part of the power plant, called Longannet Chimney, stood over 600 feet tall, and was the largest free-standing structure in Scotland. At one point, it was also the largest power generating station in all of Europe. While other stations have since outclassed it, it remained the largest coal-fired station in Scotland all the way until 2016, when it closed down. For the next 5 years, it stood like a ghost of coal power over the country until ScottishPower rigged it with explosives for a controlled demolition.

On December 9th, 700 kilograms (1500 lb) of explosives brought the tower down, officially making coal history in Scotland. Since 2016, ScottishPower has been making only renewable energy from wind and solar farms in the country.

“At COP26 in Glasgow, we were proud to show the world that Scotland has already made coal history. As a 100% energy company, we are committed to helping the UK end its reliance on fossil fuels.” said Keith Anderson, Chief Executive, ScottishPower. “For half a century, Longannet’s chimney has dominated the Firth of Forth skyline. We bade farewell to that landmark today – however this is a landmark day for Scotland too. Watching the chimney of Scotland’s last coal-fired station fall today represents a real milestone, as the UK moves away from the large polluting power stations of the past and accelerates down the road to net zero emissions. We already know the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy is essential to minimise the worst impacts of global warming and address the climate emergency.”

The Longannet plant ran for over 47 years, burning coal from around the world. Typically, it consumed 4 million tonnes of coal per year and at full production could produce enough electricity to power two million homes. Coal came from Scotland, but also came from as far away as Russia to feed the plant’s needs.

Prior to the demolition, the company projected the Global Warming Stripes onto the chimney, and also projected “Make Coal History” on to the smokestack to make it clear to the public that they weren’t just demolishing an old power station, but did so as part of a larger effort to clean up the country’s act in the face of an existential threat.

In other words, it marks something a whole lot more important than just one smokestack or one power station. Scotland is committed to clean, renewable energy and isn’t about to turn back now.

Featured image by ScottishPower.

UPDATE

Scan of mummy reveals damage, repair, amulets and treasure

The scan revealed that amulets of scarabs, snails, serpent heads and the Eye of Horus in gold, clay and stone were arranged around the body

Author of the article:Joseph Brean
Publishing date:Dec 28, 2021 • 

A computed tomography scan of the face of the Egyptian pharaoh Amenhotep I, 

who died in 1504 BCE

 PHOTO BY SAHAR SALEEM AND ZAHI HAWASS

Undisturbed for three millennia, the last unwrapped pharaonic mummy has given up secrets to the modern science of computed tomography. A new scan reveals an amulet over the heart of Amenhotep I, a girdle of 34 golden beads at his lower back, and evidence that his earthly remains were damaged and fixed up by ancient Egyptian priests four centuries after his death in 1504 BCE.

The CT scan also produced an image of his face, revealing a slightly bucktoothed 35-year-old man with a narrow chin, sunken cheeks, small eyes and a pierced left ear. His brain remains in place, shrivelled onto the back of his skull. He was circumcised. Amulets of scarabs, snails, serpent heads and the Eye of Horus in gold, clay and stone are arranged around the body. There is an incision on his left flank through which he was eviscerated. Alive, he was short, probably about five foot six and a bit, and he is now the earliest known mummy of the New Kingdom golden age of Egyptian pharaohs whose arms are crossed at the chest.

No cause of death was obvious, but postmortem damage was revealing. A complete decapitation at the neck is held back in place with a linen band. There is resin patched into fractured vertebrae. The left shoulder is dislocated, but wrapped in place. Only three fingers remain. A defect in the abdominal wall is patched with linen treated in resin, with two amulets underneath.

One conclusion of a report published Monday in the peer-reviewed Frontiers in Medicine is that this physical disruption, probably in two separate rewrappings by priests of the 21st Dynasty after 1100 BC, reflects an effort to protect and preserve this king’s body after grave robbery, because by then he was the subject of an important funerary cult.

The location of the damage at the neck and limbs lend credence to the view that tomb raiders were after jewelry, and “hacked the abdomen wall in search of amulets inside the body cavity,” according to the report.

Lead author Sahar Saleem, an Egyptian radiologist who has previously scanned the body of King Tutankhamun and found a knife wound in the throat of Ramesses III, suggestive of murder, told the National Post on Monday from Cairo that “unwrapping” Amenhotep I’s earthly remains without disturbing them was “like the thrill one gets unwrapping a gift.”

Saleem, who started her career in paleoradiology while studying medicine at Western University in Ontario before joining Egypt’s Ministry of Antiquities in 2006, said this is the latest of the 40 mummies she has scanned since 2005. Her co-author is Zahi Hawass, an Egyptologist who also served as minister of antiquities under Hosni Mubarak.

Scanning the mummy of Amenhotep I is a special opportunity. It is the only royal mummy that has not been physically unwrapped in modern times. This is due to its unique “beauty and perfect preservation,” Saleem said, with obsidian crystals in the eyes on the face mask, a carved cobra on the forehead with inlaid stones, and floral garlands draping down.

Amenhotep I was a king in the 18th Dynasty who succeeded his father as a boy in 1525 BCE and ruled for 21 years, leading military campaigns and building important structures including a temple at Karnak.

The famous Egyptian Book of the Dead, the body of writing that describes the Egyptian afterlife and is often found on papyrus scrolls ceremonially entombed with royals, is thought to have been completed in his reign, as it first appears in the tomb of his successor.

Amenhotep I was the first pharaoh to build a tomb separate from a mortuary temple, possibly to deter grave robbers. This set a new burial trend and made him the subject of a funerary cult, with many statues found in his likeness and records of feast days.

His coffin was moved and reburied by priests of the 21st Dynasty, four centuries after his death, and ended up in the great royal cache at Deir-al-Bahri, a disorganized collection of royal mummies, with some even in others’ coffins.

Amenhotep I was discovered there in 1881, in a coffin that detailed in hieroglyphs the efforts of priests to rewrap the mummy after damage by grave robbers.

“Gaston Maspero, the director of antiquities in Egypt at that time, decided to let the mummy remain untouched because of its perfect wrapping completely covered by garlands and its exquisite face mask,” the paper reports. “When the coffin of Amenhotep I was opened, a preserved wasp was found, possibly attracted by the smell of garlands, and was trapped.”

“This study may make us gain confidence in the goodwill of the reburial project of the Royal mummies by the 21st dynasty priests,” it says.

Saleem said CT scanning can answer or inform nearly every question about a mummy, including age, sex, health, diseases, cause of death, style of mummification, artifacts, and so on. But there remain questions about the chemistry of embalming materials, which newer developments in CT imaging might help with.

At least 18 peaceful environmental protesters jailed in UK this year


Ten Insulate Britain activists spent Christmas in jail as campaigners decry ‘power grab’ over right to protest

Jailed Insulate Britain activists including Ben Taylor (top row, fourth from left) and Oliver Roc (bottom right). Photograph: Insulate Britain/PA

Damien Gayle and Matthew Taylor
Tue 28 Dec 2021

At least 18 peaceful environmental protesters have been sent to prison this year, with 10 spending Christmas Day behind bars.

As concern about the climate crisis grows, activists have been jailed after blocking roads, disrupting court proceedings and in one case climbing on top of an aeroplane in an attempt to draw attention to the escalating emergency.

Campaigners fear their “heavy-handed treatment” is part of a concerted effort by the state to crack down on the right to protest, with the government’s controversial police, crime, sentencing and courts bill criticised by human rights activists as “a dangerous power grab”.

Ten members of the environmental protest group Insulate Britain spent Christmas serving prison sentences for contempt of court for breaching injunctions banning their road block protests, which demanded the proper insulation of the UK’s housing stock. Seven more have suspended sentences.

At least eight other environmental activists have served prison sentences in 2021 for contempt of court actions, according to Extinction Rebellion, including livestreaming from court and gluing themselves to the dock.

Six activists who occupied a tunnel close to Euston station in London in protest against the HS2 high-speed rail link earlier this year narrowly avoided a jail sentence after charges were dismissed by a judge.

The jailed Insulate Britain protesters have sent unrepentant messages from behind bars.

“Locked in my cell for twenty-three and a half hours each day, I miss my family, I miss my friends, I miss nature,” said Oliver Roc, 41, who is serving a four-month sentence at HMP Thameside in south-east London.

“But when I think about the future we are facing I feel a deep conviction that [what] we have done is right, that this is the best place.”

In a campaign of disruptive protests that began on 13 September, Insulate Britain activists blocked major roads in and around London, at the port of Dover, in Manchester and in Birmingham on 19 different occasions. Their tactics angered motorists and were fiercely criticised, with politicians calling the protesters selfish.


Insulate Britain declares M25 ‘site of non-violent civil resistance’

Read more

The activists vowed to continue until the government agreed to a programme of insulating all Britain’s draughty and energy-inefficient homes by 2030 – or until they were sent to prison.

The latest to be jailed was Dr Diana Warner, 62, a retired GP from Bristol.

After a spree of activism, including being found not guilty over a 2019 Extinction Rebellion action at Canary Wharf, and then skipping her contempt of court trial to block a train headed for the Drax power station in North Yorkshire, Warner said she was finally sleeping well.

“The first thing I think about is no longer the climate and environment emergency because I know I’ve done my best and can take a bit of a breather,” she told the Guardian from HMP Bronzefield in Ashford, Surrey.

“Being in prison for climate activism seems very odd. But in such a disjointed world it feels to me like the right place to be.”

Ben Taylor, 26, is serving the longest sentence. He was jailed for six months after telling judges if they freed him he would “go out and block the highway at the earliest opportunity” and would keep doing it until the government acts.

The Guardian view on the police bill: a fight for the right to protest

He said life at Thameside was mostly boring. “I was treated a bit rough at first, made to feel alienated, vulnerable and powerless, but I’m on a good wing now and have made a few friends. It’s really not that bad for me.”

James Brown, the Paralympian released this month after being jailed for gluing himself to a plane in an XR action in 2019, said it was important for those spending Christmas in prison to remember they had “done the right thing”.

Brown, who spent 10 weeks in Wandsworth prison in London, said: “It is tough for them and their families at Christmas but it is necessary ... Most of the positive, radical changes we have seen have come about because of peaceful protest and civil disobedience and that is what we need to tackle the climate and ecological crisis. In the end, if you are not resisting then you are complicit.”

Emmanuelle Andrews, the policy and campaigns manager at the human rights group Liberty, said: “Protest is not a gift from the state, it’s a fundamental right, and one that has been attacked for years by a government that wants to make itself untouchable. The heavy-handed treatment – both by police and the government – of protesters over the past year follows a long-term trend seen for several years from a government that has sought to threaten protesters into silence.

“The government and police already have extensive powers to detain and criminalise protesters. But the policing bill is an attempt to take this even further. It is an attack on the rights of everyone who has a cause they believe in, from climate activists to grieving families looking for answers and justice.”

UK shoppers shun plastic bags to save pennies not the planet, study finds

Analysis of 1m loyalty card transactions suggests decline is mostly down to levy on single-use bags

Wales introduced the UK’s first levy on single-use plastic bags in 2011, followed by Northern Ireland in 2013, Scotland in 2014 and England in 2015. Photograph: Gill Allen/Rex/Shutterstock


PA Media
Mon 27 Dec 2021 

Shoppers have been shunning single-use plastic bags to save pennies rather than the planet, a “big data” study of more than 10,000 consumers has found.

The research by Nottingham University business school’s N/LAB analytics centre of excellence suggests the massive decline in plastic bag use in the UK may have little to do with shoppers’ concern for the environment.

The study drew on more than 1m loyalty card transactions to explore the psychological and demographic predictors of single-use bag purchases.

Researchers found bags are most likely to be bought by younger shoppers who are often male and less frugal but whose environmental concerns do not affect their decisions to buy or not.

The findings emerged with plastic bag consumption at its annual peak during the festive period, despite all retailers in England being legally required to charge 10p per bag.

The study co-author Dr James Goulding, N/LAB’s associate director, said: “Until now very little was known about the people who still regularly buy plastic bags – or those who don’t.

“Previous research has tended to focus exclusively on consumers’ personalities or motivations not, crucially, on whether an individual’s beliefs actually translate into action in the real world.

“Our approach recognises that people today leave in their wake a substantial amount of data that can help do social good and shed significant light on how they really behave in practice.”

Identified from the original dataset of 1,284,825 transactions at 1,222 stores, more than 10,000 consumers participated in a questionnaire exploring their circumstances, traits and environmental opinions.

Their survey responses were linked to their purchasing data, and a machine-learning algorithm was then used to determine the factors that actually predicted bag-buying behaviour.

The survey included questions about views on environmental considerations in general and climate change in particular, but these were found to have little influence on purchasing decisions.

Dr Gavin Smith, an associate professor in analytics, said: “We expected our findings would show infrequent bag-buyers are at least partly motivated by a desire to save money.

“But what we didn’t expect, not least given environmentalism’s role in underpinning the levy on plastic bags, was that environmental concerns wouldn’t predict consumption at all.

“This suggests future campaigns to further reduce plastic bag consumption might benefit from different messaging. It’s a matter of understanding whom to target, how and when.”

Amid growing concerns over the contribution plastic bags make to pollution and litter, Wales introduced the UK’s first levy in 2011, with Northern Ireland following in 2013 and Scotland in 2014.

In 2015, the year after its seven biggest supermarkets gave away more than 7.6bn single-use bags, England introduced its own 5p levy, which doubled to a minimum of 10p in May this year and was extended to all retailers.

‘It’ll take away our livelihoods’: Welsh farmers on rewilding and carbon markets

Despite attempts to integrate them into moves to tackle the biodiversity crisis, some farmers still feel sidelined and criticised

Teleri and Ned Fielden on their farm – Hafod y Llyn Isaf – in Snowdonia. They also have to work off the farm to make ends meet. Photograph: Handout

Animals farmed is supported by


Tom Levitt
Tue 28 Dec 2021 

Teleri Fielden is suddenly very despairing. After skirting around the topic for the best part of an hour at her farm in Snowdonia, we’re discussing rewilding and the idea of restoring land to a more natural state and creating more nature-friendly farming practices.

Wales has become one of the focal points of the debate playing out all over the world about how farms and rewilding can work together. Supporters of rewilding say the two can co-exist, but that farming has to change given it is the biggest contributor to nature loss in the country.

Around 1 in 6 species in the country are currently at risk of extinction and birds like turtle doves and corn buntings have already gone from Wales’ skies.

With close to 90% of land in Wales used for agriculture, there is currently little space for wildlife to exist free from the influence of farming. Rewilding, which can involve encouraging and supporting wildlife on-farm through replanting hedgerows as well as giving over unproductive land to nature, could help reverse the biodiversity decline.

A recent report from the Rewilding Britain charity found rewilding at 22 sites in England had led to an increase in jobs from a total of 151 to 222, in roles including animal husbandry, ecology and nature tourism.

But two years ago plans to rewild a large area of mid-Wales sparked a backlash from farmers, who felt sidelined. Rewilding Britain was forced to step down from the project. Adding to the disquiet are reports of Welsh farmland being bought for carbon-offset projects.

Fielden, 31, who has just taken over the tenancy of Hafod y Llyn Isaf, a farm a few miles from Wales’ highest mountain, Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon), is involved in the nature friendly farming network, but nonetheless remains sceptical of rewilding.

“I just find it bizarre. It is as if they just go, ‘we’ll pluck all you people out of there, we don’t want you, your livelihoods, your traditions or your land management skills’,” she says.

“We’ll just remove you and to hell with the rural economy, people and food. It’s a weird kind of Highland clearance,” adds Fielden, referring to the forced removal of people from farms in the Scottish Highlands by landlords from the mid-18th century.

Together with her husband, Ned, 29, Fielden is building a herd of sheep and cattle, which they rear outdoors all year round. She has made a beautifully hand-drawn map of their plans for creating flower-rich meadows and integrating the woodland on their farm, once an estuary.

“Nature can do amazing things, but if we separate ourselves from the land, we will lose that link, as well as the skills and experience of managing it for ever. We could just import food – or instead, we could create livelihoods, local communities and homegrown protein.”

Teleri Fielden’s plans for the farm include flower-rich meadows and making more use of woodland, as well as holiday lets and farm tours. Photograph: Handout

For Fielden, taking on the farm was only possible with a loan from her parents to cover the cost of livestock and investments around the farm. Income streams include selling meat boxes, being paid to graze their livestock on other land, and jobs four days a week off the farm.

It sounds precarious, but Fielden, who grew up in Wrexham, already feels committed to the area and community. “We’re probably going to be here for the rest of our lives,” she says.

“I’ve always wanted to farm and to do something positive environmentally. And for me, beef and lamb is the most ethical way of raising meat. Our animals are very much free range, they’re just here on the land. It’s a closed-loop system [manure is recycled into the soil that grows the grass animals eat]. We’re not buying in soya feed like with chickens and there are no external inputs apart from worm treatment.”

Jane Powell, a coordinator of the Wales Real Food and Farming Conference, and who has been involved in rewilding projects, says farmers are seen by some as “incidental” to the countryside: “That they [farmers] had trashed the wildlife and now someone else was going to restore it.”

Because we rotationally graze, the organic matter of the soil is improving at 0.2% a year, which means more carbon locked up

Rhidian Glyn, farmer

Powell says land-use debates must take account of food, wildlife, tourism and jobs. “Wildlife and food are not two things to be traded off against each other; they need to be integrated.

“We shouldn’t be selling off bits of land for rewilding and keeping intensive poultry production on others,” she says.

Rewilding Britain admits mistakes were made in the mid-Wales project, but insists it is a myth to think rewilding is about abandoning land, food production or communities.

“Growing numbers of farms are showing how they can make a difference to nature – from smaller-scale wildlife projects that are sowing wildflowers or replanting hedgerows or reducing chemical use, to farms that are rewilding marginal and unproductive land on a large-scale,” says a spokesperson for the organisation.

“Farmers are essential for helping society tackle the nature and climate crises – not least because some 70% of Britain is farmland, and because so often farmers know the land intimately, with deep cultural, historical and personal connections to it.”

While Fielden juggles work, the farm and diversification to stay viable, 50 miles to the south in mid-Wales, Rhidian Glyn has a large enough cattle and sheep business to farm full-time.

Rhidian Glyn on his farm north of Machynlleth, Wales, where for every tonne of meat sold from the farm, nine tonnes of carbon are sequestered. Photograph: Handout

Glyn, 36, is also a tenant, with a landlord who he is keen to stress wants the land to remain in agricultural use.

His type of farming – livestock on hilly land – is often seen as the least viable, yet subsidies make up just 10% of his turnover, thanks to booming lamb sales – “prices have gone through the roof since Brexit”, he says – and a profitable business rearing milking cows for local dairy farmers.

Annual measurements of the farm’s soils show he is capturing and storing, or sequestering, carbon through his cattle and sheep.

“Because we rotationally graze [moving animals between pastures], the organic matter of the soil is improving at a rate of 0.2% a year, which means more carbon locked up in the soils. For every tonne of meat we’re selling from the farm, nine tonnes of carbon are being sequestered,” he says.

Yet for Glyn, this is no financial boom, rather a source of potential conflict if farmers are sold credits for that carbon but later asked to provide meat that can be marketed as sequestering carbon.


Planting a vision: why the secret to rewilding success is about people, not trees

As with the debate about rewilding, Glyn fears that carbon offsetting will accelerate a move away from food production and traditional livelihoods in Wales. He doesn’t want to sell carbon credits from planting trees or sequestered carbon in his soils if it replaces rearing sheep and cattle.

“It would be interesting if the world did come to that, but whether it’s right is another thing. Agriculture is just the recycling of carbon, isn’t it? Whereas the companies that are buying carbon credits are just burning fossil fuels, aren’t they, which is just a one-way system.”

KELOWNA, BC
Ice volcanoes, steam devils and ice pancakes show up during Okanagan’s deep freeze
MONIQUE TAMMINGA
Dec. 28, 2021 

Ice volcanoes are once again erupting at the shores of Okanagan Lake in Penticton on Dec. 29, 2021. (Monique Tamminga Western News)

A steam devil formed and twisted above Okanagan Lake in Summerland on Dec. 27, 2021. (Cindy Whitford Facebook)

A danger keep off ice sign at Okanagan Lake in Penticton as the Okanagan is experiencing a deep freeze with temperatures at -20 C on Dec. 27, 2021. (Monique Tamminga Western News)

Ice volcanoes have formed again along the shores of Okanagan Lake in Penticton.

An ice volcano is a conical mound of ice formed over a lake via the eruption of water and slush through an ice shelf. The process is wave-driven, with wind providing the energy for the waves to cut through the ice and form the so-called volcanoes. The liquid water and slush freeze and fall back to the surface, growing the formation.

This year the city has put up signs warning people not to walk on the ice. Kevin, the famous broken wing Canada goose isn’t listening to the signs, however.

Ice volcanoes erupted during last February’s cold snap but before that Penticton hadn’t seen them since 2019.

Most of B.C. is experiencing a deep freeze with Summerland breaking a temperature record on Monday at -22.4 C.

This broke Summerland’s previous record of -20.6 set in 1971.

This December’s cold snap has even caused ice to form on the Penticton Channel.

A video has surfaced of people taking an early Polar Bear plunge into Skaha Lake on Boxing Day.

Steam devils – twister-like events that form above a lake were filmed and photographed in Summerland and Vernon on Monday, Dec. 27. Cindy Whitford filmed what she called a polar vortex water tunnel form into a twister above Okanagan Lake in Summerland. The twister moved towards Penticton.

The lake is colder than the air above it which has created steam to rise above the lake.

BRAZIL SHUTS ILLEGAL TIMBER SCHEMES, SHEDS LIGHT ON AMAZON LOGGING

Published on Dec. 28, 2021
Reuters

Under President Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil's Amazon deforestation in 2021 surged to the highest level in 15 years, according to official government statistics.

BRASILIA (Reuters) - Brazilian environmental agents this week shut down schemes involving hundreds of companies the agents said were covering up illegal logging in the Amazon rainforest, according to government documents reviewed by Reuters.

The operation conducted by the main federal environmental enforcement agency Ibama provides a rare glimpse into how illegally cut Amazon wood is inserted into legal timber supply chains, using shell companies and faking shipments.

The enforcement operation is one of the most complete ever conducted by the environmental agency, because it caught so many of the people hiding behind or doing business with the shell companies, one Ibama agent told Reuters.

Ibama identified more than 220 companies and 21 logging concessions involved in various schemes disguising the origin of illegal wood, according to the documents seen by Reuters.


Brazilian Army soldiers are pictured in a forest of wood extraction in the Amazon rainforest, inside Jamari National Forest Park in the County of Itapua do Oeste, Rondonia state, Brazil, September 28, 2021. (REUTERS/Adriano Machado)

The environmental agency will place embargoes on the companies this week to prevent them from selling wood and will hand out more than 50 million reais ($8.76 million) in fines, the documents said.

Ibama has also passed on the findings to public prosecutors and police for further criminal investigation, the documents said.

Ibama did not respond to a request for comment.

The agency can issue administrative penalties like fines and embargoes but cannot make arrests or issue criminal charges. The companies and people involved can appeal the decisions with Ibama.

Under President Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil's Amazon deforestation in 2021 surged to the highest level in 15 years, according to official government statistics.

Bolsonaro has rolled back environmental protections and sought to introduce more mining and farming to the Amazon, saying it is needed to alleviate poverty.



A tractor is used to lift logs that were cut illegally from virgin Amazon rain forest and load them onto a barge after they were seized by federal police and government inspectors as part of the Arch of Fire operation to stop illegal logging, near Tailandia, 180 km (112 miles) south of Belem, at the mouth of the Amazon River, February 27, 2008. 

REUTERS/Paulo Santos

Brazil permits legal logging, handing out a limited number of concessions that allow only a proportion of trees to be cut in a specific area, and sets quotas capping the harvest.

Those quotas are given out as credits that then accompany the wood as it is sold and resold, certifying its legal origins until it is made into a "finished product" like furniture or flooring.

But under the schemes, companies were selling the credits without the wood, the documents said.

Buyers would then attach the woodless credits to illegally sourced wood with origins such as protected nature reserves or tribal lands.

In some cases, the companies involved were shell companies that only existed on paper in order to funnel the credits, which could change hands many times before being used, the documents said.

A tree is seen in a forest of wood extraction in the Amazon rainforest, inside Jamari National Forest Park in the County of Itapua do Oeste, Rondonia state, Brazil, September 28, 2021. (REUTERS/Adriano Machado)

The scheme involved more than 102,000 cubic meters of illegally cut wood from Para, Rondonia and Mato Grosso states. That amount represents the harvest of about 97 square kilometers of forest, an area larger than Manhattan, which still pales in comparison to more than 13,000 square kilometers of deforestation officially recorded in the 12 months through July.

"That's a drop in the ocean," said Raoni Rajao, a land use expert at the Federal University of Minas Gerais, when asked about the discovery.

The Ibama operation provides an example of the most common way which illegal loggers sell their wood into the legal system, according to Rajao.

"It's certainly very widespread," he said.

Most of the illegally harvested wood was sold into Brazil's domestic market for a variety of uses, said the Ibama agent, on condition of anonymity.

The final manufacturer or consumer generally has no way of knowing the wood is illegal as the timber appears to be legitimate in the government system, the agent said. Therefore, they cannot be held liable, the person said.

Selective logging to extract valuable timber is often the first step in deforestation, with the remaining forest then burned to clear land for agriculture.

(Reporting by Jake Spring; Editing by David Gregorio)

Thumbnail credit: REUTERS/Adriano Machado