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GUARDIAN Thu, 03 May 2012 09:49:00 GMT
What happened when George Monbiot joined Guardian readers across the world for a live video chat on everything from nuclear power to New Zealand's green image?
We're always trying to get closer to our readers, and so on Wednesday, eight readers as far afield as Greece and New Zealand took part in our first high profile Google+ Hangout with our environmental commentator, George Monbiot.
The surprisingly intimate video chat really highlighted our readers' depth of expertise in specialist areas. In this case, everything from marine protected areas, energy efficiency, "re-wilding" and restoring habitats, and biodiversity offsets to planning reforms and sustainable housing, nuclear power from an engineer's point of view, and farming subsidies.
You can watch some of the highlights of the video here (and the full version here), but below are some of the other highlights.
In answer to reader Nicholas Jackson, George made clear he stood by his backing for nuclear power, which he.......
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GUARDIAN Mon, 23 Apr 2012 12:51:43 GMT
Sighting in waters off Kamchatka peninsula is believed to be first time an adult white orca has been spotted in wild
Scientists have glimpsed a white adult orca, or killer whale, while on a research expedition off the far eastern coast of Russia.
The sighting in waters off the Kamchatka peninsula is believed to be the first time such a whale has been spotted in the wild.
Researchers said the marine mammal, whom they nicknamed Iceberg, was swimming with its mother and siblings, and appeared to be fully accepted by its 12-strong family.
White whales are not unheard of, but only young white orcas are thought to have been recorded by marine conservationists before.
The whale was spotted by a group of scientists on a research cruise co-led by Erich Hoyt of the Far East Russia Orca Project.
"We've seen three white orcas in the past few years, but this is the very first time we've seen a mature animal that is all white," Hoyt told the Guardian.
Hoyt, a senior research fellow at.....
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GUARDIAN Mon, 23 Apr 2012 14:00:00 GMT
Our delight at Iceberg, the albino killer whale, is not so very different from the dread Moby-Dick inspired in Herman Melville
"It was the whiteness of the whale that appalled me." The appearance of an all-white orca, or killer whale, off Russia's Kamchatka peninsula, would have delighted Herman Melville (and not just for the coincidence that his own uncle, the wonderfully named Captain John D'Wolf II, "a fine handsome man with white hair", had been sailing in the same seas when a whale surfaced underneath his boat). In Moby-Dick, Melville dwells at great length, for an entire chapter, on the wickedness of whiteness, as opposed to blackness. He sees evil in albinism, in the polar bear and the shark – an eerie, uncanny pallor that "so peculiarly repels and often shocks the eye".
The Kamchatka whale, nicknamed "Iceberg", was spotted by Dr Eric Hoyt, a well known whale scientist and consultant to the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society. Dr Hoyt said the animal has a two-metre.....
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GUARDIAN Mon, 23 Apr 2012 16:34:45 GMT
Thousands of ramblers expected to attend inaugural rally recognising how law-breaking led to free access to countryside
Thousands of ramblers from all over the world are expected to join a week of activities in Derbyshire's Peak District, which became the UK's first national park as a result of deliberate law-breaking in 1932.
Increasingly ranked with the Chartists, Suffragettes and Tolpuddle Martyrs as a reclamation of the stolen rights of "free born" Britons, the mass trespass is also being marked as a "torch which today's campaigners must carry forward".
An inaugural rally, with a march to the moors behind a local male voice choir, will be told that privacy and barbed wire are regularly trying to re-enclose ground lost by landowners to eight decades of conservation campaigning, footpath revival and the right to roam.
Leaders of the National Trust, Ramblers and the Open Spaces Society, which was founded in 1865 to protect common land, are expected to fire up an opening rally..
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GUARDIAN Fri, 20 Apr 2012 11:39:30 GMT
We are calling for a network of special representatives to help protect the resources and livelihoods of future generations
Today, vast factory trawlers are vacuuming every living thing off the floor of the oceans. Toxic waste is being dumped in poor communities whose governments turn a blind eye. Millions of acres of irreplaceable primeval forest are purposely being burned every year, to make way for cattle ranches.
These are crimes against the future, crimes that are happening today, in large numbers, all over the world. These are crimes that will not only injure future generations, but destroy any future at all for millions of people. And today, there is in most countries no institution or person with the job of defending the rights of those future generations.
But tomorrow, there could be.
The World Future Council is calling for "ombudspersons for future generations". These would be guardians appointed at global, national and local levels whose job would be to help........
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GUARDIAN Fri, 16 Mar 2012 12:41:46 GMT
Agriculture across the world depends on rainfall, so harvesting and conserving rainwater is key to boosting crop yields
Whether it's bread, meat, milk or bananas, whatever we eat demands water. But with a rapidly growing population (already more than 7 billion people), water availability per capita reduces drastically.
There is a correlation between poverty, hunger and water stress. The UN Millennium Project has identified the "hot spot" countries in the world with the highest number of malnourished people. These countries coincide closely with semi-arid and dry sub-humid hydroclimates, savannahs and steppe ecosystems, where rainfed agriculture is the dominating source of food, and where water constitutes a key limiting factor to crop growth.
The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) estimates that we need to increase agricultural production by 70% to feed the projected 9 billion people expected on the planet by 2050. But, given the current global food crisis, boosting........
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GUARDIAN Tue, 06 Mar 2012 13:19:17 GMT
Environmental team is assessing the reef amid concerns over rapid escalation in coal exports and gas exploration
A UN environmental team has arrived in Australia for a crunch 10-day assessment of the Great Barrier Reef, warning that the coral ecosystem is at a "crossroads" due to the soaring activity of the mining industry in the World Heritage Area.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) visit comes amid fears that the reef's world heritage listing, which it has held since 1981, could be placed in jeopardy after rapid escalation in coal exports and gas exploration.
"The Great Barrier Reef is definitely at a crossroad and decisions that will be taken over the next one, two, three years might potentially be crucial for the long-term conservation [of the reef]," said Fanny Douvere, from Unesco's World Heritage marine programme.
Australia's coal boom is set to open up the previously undeveloped Galilee Basin in central Queensland, greatly.....
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GUARDIAN Tue, 06 Mar 2012 17:30:00 GMT
How many bird species from Papua New Guinea can you identify in this woman's traditional costume?
Mystery Birds photographed at a Singsing in Lae, Morobe Province, Papua New Guinea.
Image: Eric Kowalczyk, 26 October 2007 (with permission, for GrrlScientist/Guardian use only) [velociraptorise].
Olympus u20D,S400D,u400D
Question: This is a departure from what I usually do with the daily mystery bird. I am thrilled to share this image of a young woman from Papua New Guinea -- a place I've been fascinated by ever since I was a child. As you can see, she is wearing a spectacular traditional costume, consisting of a dozen or more native bird species or their feathers. For example, I can see eight species of birds of paradise and several parrot species in this young woman's headdress and body decorations without studying this image carefully. I am sure there are more. How many bird species can you identify? (Seriously, you can name them, no puns, anagrams or other cryptic clues.....
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GUARDIAN Mon, 02 Jan 2012 17:26:00 GMT
This large bird is defending itself against attack by a mammal that is much larger than itself
Martial eagle, Polemaetus bellicosus (synonym, Hieraaetus bellicosus; protonym, Falco bellicosus), Daudin, 1800, also known as the Marshall eagle or as the martial hawk-eagle photographed at Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Tanzania (Africa).
Image: Dan Logen, 17 February 2011 (with permission) [velociraptorize].
Nikon D300
I encourage you to purchase images from the photographers who freely share their beautiful work with us.
Question: This African mystery bird is probably not very challenging to identify, but the interaction is quite mysterious: what is happening here? Can you identify this bird's taxonomic family and species, and identify the animal this bird is interacting with?
Response: This is an adult martial eagle, Polemaetus bellicosus, engaged in an aggressive interaction with a female waterbuck, Kobus ellipsiprymnus. This particular image is part of a short photoessay....
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GUARDIAN Sun, 04 Dec 2011 12:00:00 GMT
Books, books, beautiful books! This is a list of biology, ecology, environment, natural history and animal books that are (or will soon be) available to occupy your bookshelves (or your library's bookshelves) and your thoughts.
Books to the ceiling,
Books to the sky,
My pile of books is a mile high.
How I love them! How I need them!
I'll have a long beard by the time I read them.
~ Arnold Lobel [1933-1987] author of many popular children's books.
Compiled by Ian "Birdbooker" Paulsen, the Birdbooker Report is a weekly report listing the wide variety of nature, natural history, ecology, animal behaviour, science and history books that have been newly released or republished in North America and in the UK. The books listed here were received by Ian during the previous week, courtesy of various publishing houses.
New and Recent Titles:
Doughty, Robin W. and Virginia Carmichael. The Albatross and the Fish: Linked Lives in the Open Seas. 2011. University of Texas Press........
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| Full List of Conservation articles |
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Anti-whaling group leader arrested in Germany
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The UK's marine reserves are nothing but paper parks | George Monbiot
Goshawk's nest destroyed in Peak District grouse-shooting area
'Marine snow' could herald breakthrough in race to save eels
Turtle dove rescue mission begins
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No long-term damage to bird populations
