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Which is the most eco-friendly alcoholic drink?

September 3, 2010

Wine, beer or spirits: which has the biggest environmental impact? And would you pass on your favourite tipple if it was shown to damage the environment?Which alcoholic beverage is the most eco-friendly?Tracey Tatty Yappa, via FacebookAfter reading through the comments below, it seems we have a consensus view that cider has the least environmental impact of all the alcoholic drinks, and spirits the worst. This stance is largely based on the proposition that the most significant impact - in terms of energy use, at least - is caused by the manufacturing stage, as opposed to the packaging or transportation phase of a drink's lifecycle. I would agree with this argument in most cases, but it does seem there are some massive variables between the various types of alcoholic drinks.For example, beer seems to get a fairly bad rap from readers because its production requires plenty of heating, cooling and water, not to forget the often agriculturally intensive ingredients. There are some excellent inputs from ColdRiverBrewing and bobinfrance on the specific issue of how much water is required to produce beer. "A rule of thumb is that breweries use 5-10 times more water than actually leaves the premises as beer," says ColdRiverBrewing. According to an article earlier this year in the brewing industry trade press, SABMiller (Nastro Azzurro, Peroni, Grolsch, Miller, among other brands) has now vowed to cut its use of water to 3.5 litres of water per litre of beer brewed by 2015, a reduction of 25% on its 2008's figure. But SABMiller claims to have among the best environmental record in the business, so maybe the industry average is higher?Sustain, the "alliance for better food and farming", agrees with the point made by Waterlizard and others about the need to support local producers in an effort to reduce the amount of energy used to ship our alcohol across the globe:It has been calculated that the ingredients in locally brewed, locally drunk beer could, taken together, travel as little as 600 miles. A major brewer, exporting to the UK from, say, Germany, could accumulate 24,000 miles of transport for the ingredients and the product. Environmental costs could also be reduced if we followed the Danes' example, where 99% of all glass bottles are re-used. Only about 2% of UK beer was sold in returnable bottles in 1997.It does seem to be a rather sensible conclusion that importing fewer liquids around the world wherever possible is a good thing from an environmental point of view. The same argument applies to bottled water, but I suppose many people in the world would be deprived of wine, for example, if you didn't allow the odd shipment of wine to leave the regions where vines can be commercially grown. (Imagine the rioting in wine-deprived nations!) Leadballon makes a valid point about this, though:A reasonable strategy for the more distant wine sources is to look for locally bottled wine that has been transported in bulk. Unfortunately bulk transport is usually only the most generic varietal and origin available, Cabernet/Shiraz from South East Australia is about as specific as it gets. Light weight containers such as boxes are similarly restricted to the generics.I'm not a big fan of cider myself (I'm not sure I've even ever tried perry), but I'm persuaded by the enthusiasm shown here for it. Cade, smartse, Mentalfloss, Titaflan, and andreakkk all put forward the case for why we should order a local cider at the bar over all other forms of merriment. Cade probably says it the simplest: "Cider is just about as green as you can get. Mash up some apples, squeeze the juice out, barrel it up then just leave it."I'm also persuaded by smartse's argument that apple orchards provide a more sustainable habitat for wildlife than, say, a field of barley or hops. But surely it all comes down to how intensively the farmer manages that acre of land.The obvious alternative to all this, though, is producing your own alcohol at home. As roolbg and rashomonuk state, homebrewing can be a rewarding hobby. What's more, you can control exactly what goes into your brew as well as greatly minimising the packaging and transportation required. I'll certainly drink to that.On 31 August, Leo originally wrote:Vodka, wine, beer, whisky, sherry, gin: the drinks cabinet is well stocked, but which of these alcoholic refreshments causes the least damage to the environment during its production? Alternatively, is there any alcoholic drink you would argue provides environmental benefits? And would you - unlikely, I know - ditch your favourite tipple if it was shown to have a poor environmental record?Please share your thoughts below and, as ever, I will return on Friday to join the debate.• Please send your own environment question to ask.leo.and.lucy@guardian.co.uk.
Or, alternatively, message me on Twitter @leohickman

Leo Hickman

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Get your camera and capture nature's harvest

September 3, 2010

Photography adds another dimension to wild food foraging – not just for identification purposes but as an art form

• Send your photos of nature's harvest to our Green shoots Flickr group
There are as many reason for the current resurgent rise in enthusiasm for all things wild food and foraging-related as there are wild foods themselves – from belt tightening austerity measures, to a desire to source local, sustainable food without the organic price tag and creativity in the kitchen. Some people choose to forage rather than shop in order to connect with seasonal rhythms instead of the discordant economic and clock-watching dictates of a mundane working week.As a full-time forager – someone with an all-encompassing hobby that I sometimes try to pass off as work – all of the above, as well as deep-seated philosophical, psychological and spiritual reasons, have led me to an all-embracing commitment to wild food. It is a commitment that seeks to engage with – indeed even capture in some small way – the verdant, fleeting and ephemeral delights that nature exhibits.As a child, the first books I encountered that seemed to capture in small part the magnificence of nature were Edith Holden's delightful 1906 The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady and Rev William Keeble Martin's exquisitely illustrated The Concise British Flora in Colour. Later, as a teenager, I came upon the book Wild Food by the now grand master of photographic guides, Roger Phillips. His superb photography seemed to truly capture the mysterious elements that made foraging for wild food so appealing - delightfully arranged rustic compositions showed tarte aux myrtilles on the banks of a woodland stream; blackberry pies, tarts and jams against a backdrop of stubble-burning field, and Carragheen soup precariously balanced on craggy waveswept rocks. These pictures were alive with the raw beauty, hinted dangers and creative promise of wild food.Being neither well-suited to poetry nor painting, photography allowed me to add an engaging and enjoyable dimension to my wild food pursuits. The photographic dimension to foraging is wonderfully varied: plant portraits for identification; final dish shots; underwater photography of seaweeds resplendent in their natural element, or arty photos just for the creative and celebratory joy of it all.In the UK, the changing seasons and varied habitats of specific wild plant foods offer endless scope for exciting pictures: nuts, berries, leaves, roots and fungi, their fascinating colours naturally juxtaposed against storm-leaden skies, misty rivers, and sun-baked earth. Raw settings and macro lens offer up the unique perspective of the intimate and super close-up view, revealing hidden details and mysterious patterns in seed husks and fruit skins.The following list of wild foods available in September is in no way exhaustive. Apart from Hottentot figs and bilberries, that don't grow here, and truffles that I've never been lucky enough to find, these are all the things I regularly forage down in Kent:Fruit: Elderberry, Juke of Argyle's "Goji" tea plant berries, black nightshade berry (some caution advised), dog rose hip, mulberry, wild service tree and other sorbus spp berries, Japanese rose hip, hawthorn berry (haws), staghorn sumac berries, blackberries, dewberries, bilberries, sloes, sea buckthorn berries, apples, crab apples, rowan berries, pears, figs, Hottentot figs, Himalayan honeysuckle berries (some caution advised), Yew berries (lots of caution advised), cherry plums, greengages, Juniper berries, hops.Leaves: Watercress, sea aster, seabeet, sea purslane, perennial wallrocket, fat hen, water mint and other mints, Canadian fleabane, sow thistle, wood sorrel, common sorrel, ox-eye daisy, sea plantain, marsh samphire (tips), bristly ox-tongue.Flowers: Yarrow, heather, common mallow.Roots/bulbs: Burdock root, horse radish root, dandelion root, ramsons/wild garlic bulbs (and roots).Nuts/seeds: Walnuts (soft - for making pate), beech nuts (mast), Himalayan balsam seeds, hazelnuts, great plantain seeds, wild carrot seeds, fennel seeds, poppy seeds, cabbage family plant seeds, common hogweed seeds.Fungi: Giant puffball, summer truffle, chanterelle, parasol, fairy ring, jelly ear, penny bun and other boletes, fly agaric (caution advised, toxins must be leached out first before consuming) summer truffles, cauliflower fungus, beefsteak fungus, field and horse mushroom and other agaricus species.Seaweeds: Dulse, laver, Carragheen, grape pip weed, oyster thief,Wracks: Bladder, toothed, horned, egg, spiral, channelled,Kelps: Oarweed, furbellows, sugar kelp, thongweed, sea lettuce, gutweed and other ulva species, dabberlocks, japweed, pepper dulse.For those new to wild foods, apart from attending wild food or plant/fungi identification courses, I'd recommend Roger Phillips's Wild Food, The Wild Flower Key by Francis Rose and Clare O'Reilly, the photographic edition of Richard Mabey's classic Food for Free, Miles Irving's The Forager Handbook and the excellent web-based resource and database, Plants For A Future.• Fergus Drennan is a broadcaster and writer.• Send your photos of nature's harvest to our Green shoots Flickr group

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What is the 'environmentalist's paradox'?

September 3, 2010

Why is human well-being improving globally when our environmental woes appear to be worsening all the time?We hear lots of concerned chatter these days – not least, here on this site - about peak oil, peak water, deforestation, resource depletion and the like, but a popular riposte offered by those doubting such concerns is something commonly referred to as the "Environmentalist's Paradox".The argument goes thus: "Why, despite resource depletion and the degradation of ecosystems, is average human well-being improving globally?"People such as Matt Ridley, author of the Rational Optimist, argue that environmentalists are needlessly downbeat about humanity's prospects. After all, we are a resourceful, adaptable, highly intelligent species more than capable of riding out any current concerns (if only we would de-shackle ourselves from free-market constraints).As a counterpoint, we have the likes of Jared Diamond, author of Collapse, arguing that we should heed the lessons provided by failed civilisations of the past who extinguished themselves by over-exploiting their available natural resources.The latest edition of the journal BioScience includes a fascinating paper which examines just this paradox. (hat tip: Scientific American.) "Untangling the Environmentalist's Paradox" (the PDF is available here free until it disappears behind a paywall in a month's time), co-authored by a team of scientists led by Ciara Raudsepp-Hearne of McGill University, lays out in detail the conflicting indices which underpin the paradox. The editorial introducing the article sets the scene:Studies including the influential Millennium Ecosystem Assessment have concluded that the capacity of ecosystems to produce many ecosystem services is now low. Depletion of ecosystem services is expected to mean fewer benefits to humans, thus decreasing human well-being. Yet the composite Human Development Index, a widely used metric that incorporates measures of literacy, life expectancy, and income, has improved markedly since the mid-1970s in both rich and poor nations. The index correlates strongly with other measures of prosperousness. Some measures of personal security buck the upward trend, but the overall improvement in well-being cannot, it seems, be denied. Does this paradox mean that concern about ecosystem services is overblown?The authors then present four hypotheses that might help to explain the environmentalist's paradox. Here is their summary:1. Critical dimensions of human well-being have not been captured adequately, and human well-being is actually declining. Measures of well-being that suggest it has increased are wrong or incomplete.
2. Provisioning ecosystem services, such as food production, are most significant for human well-being; therefore, if food production per capita increases, human well-being will also increase, regardless of declines in other services.
3. Technology and social innovation have decoupled human well-being from the state of ecosystems to the extent that human well-being is now less dependent on ecosystem services.
4. There is a time lag after ecosystem service degradation before human well-being is negatively affected. Loss of human well-being caused by current declines in services has therefore not yet occurred to a measurable extent.The authors effectively dismiss the first hypothesis, arguing that there is a large body of evidence to support the notion that human wellbeing is, on average, improving. As might be expected, the authors support the second hypothesis. With the third, they conclude that the available evidence suggests that the "decoupling" argument can't be supported.But perhaps the most intriguing hypothesis – for me, at least – is the fourth. Can the environmentalist's paradox be explained away by the fact that there is a time lag between when we degrade our finite natural resources and when our well-being begins to be negatively affected? If so, what is this period of time likely to be? And will the transitional descent - when/if it finally begins - be slow or rapid? The answers to these questions will surely be key to working out who will ultimately prove to be correct out of the Diamonds or the Ridleys of this world.When I think about this time lag I can't help but be reminded of the set-piece scene from the Oscar-winning Wallace and Gromit cartoon, The Wrong Trousers. Gromit, Wallace's canny dog, finds himself having to lay track as fast as he can in front of himself to ensure the toy train he's riding on remains in hot pursuit of the jewel-thief penguin escaping with a diamond. (Go to 1:28 on this video.) Using this as a metaphor, can humans keep laying the train track in front of them fast enough to avoid a nasty derailment? Can we keep perpetually delaying our fall and decline? The authors of the paper seem to be suggesting that our chances of doing so are diminishing all the time as the world becomes increasingly globalised:There is growing evidence of approaching resource collapses in certain regions of the world, but less is known about how system- or service-specific collapses may interact with one other and result in major impacts on global human well-being. Local or regional collapses may lead to cascading problems associated with forced human migration and resource competition, which could have global-scale effects on human well-being. Alternatively, market forces and trade rules could cause rapid destabilization in resource markets, leading to outcomes such as the multiple food, oil, and financial crises of 2008, which took the world by surprise. The global financial crisis of 2008 also demonstrates the connectivity of the global economy, and the capacity of globalized systems to undergo abrupt and surprising declines. Whether human well-being will suffer at the global scale will depend on how humans adapt to ecosystem degradation and its associated collapses over the next few decades…Highly adaptable human societies have at times successfully staved off the effects of environmental degradation by importing ecosystem services from other regions, enhancing the supply of ecosystem services in some areas, exporting negative impacts to other locations, and making more efficient use of ecosystem services.
However, evidence suggests that future adaptation will be different and probably more difficult, as resources near depletion at the global scale. Previously available options for migration and translocations of resource use are increasingly constrained by the scope of human use of the biosphere.As you might expect with any academic paper, there are the necessary caveats and calls for further research. As Timothy M. Beardsley, BioScience's editor in chief, says in his editorial:"The authors' conclusions are limited by the geographically aggregated nature of their data, and BioScience will publish commentary on aspects of their analysis in a future issue. Yet the article clearly strengthens the case for research that integrates human well-being, agriculture, technology, and time lags affecting ecosystem services."Agreed: it's certainly a subject that I for one would welcome much more nuanced, detailed research and discussion.

Leo Hickman

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Country diary: New Forest

September 4, 2010

Clive Chatters, chairman of the New Forest national park authority, pays tribute to the work of amateur naturalists in the recently published symposium Biodiversity in the New Forest.Their observations and recording underpin the work of the professionals whose research helps to shape conservation policy and practice. The symposium suggests that most species are under great pressure and many are declining. But all is not yet gloom and doom, as ponds around Burley make clear.During an enforced evacuation as the Blitz hit Southampton, schoolteacher LW Stratton studied a number of ponds in the area. His findings in 1942 were published after the second world war and much of his collection is now in the Manchester Museum.His research has provided a basis for my study of the molluscs in these ponds that will span 60 years. The quest has involved a fair measure of social history. The ponds had to be located. Some have gone and one is now known by a different name. Another was found only when the records of the former village pharmacy came to light.The changing landscape also had to be considered. Old photographs show the terrain around some of the ponds; one from the 1890s shows a leaning oak on the bank. The tree is still there, the water long gone.There have been some gains, but the most noticeable change is the disappearance of the largest species formerly found in several of the ponds. Still resident in the garden pond where it was found in 1942, the great pond snail, Lymnaea stagnalis, seems to have vanished from the wild. It used to be abundant in the ponds along Pound Lane.Locals recall that they were drained in the 1950s to eliminate the snails, which at the time were thought to be carriers of red water disease. Potentially fatal for cattle and ponies, the disease is actually tick-borne. If the locals' memories are correct, the snails were victims of a serious miscarriage of justice.

Graham Long

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UN to hold crisis talks on food prices as riots hit Mozambique

September 3, 2010

After violence in Africa and protests in Egypt, Serbia and Pakistan, the UN are to urge action on the rising cost of foodThe UN has called an urgent meeting on rising global food prices in an attempt to head off a repeat of the 2008 crisis that sparked riots around the world.Seven people, including two children, were killed in Mozambique this week during three days of protests triggered by a rise in the cost of bread. There has also been anger over increasing prices in Egypt, Serbia and Pakistan, where floods destroyed a fifth of the country's crops.The UN's announcement came after Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin extended the country's ban on grain exports. The ban has been partly blamed for a 5% increase in global food prices worldwide over the last two months, hitting their highest level in two years. The price of wheat has had its biggest monthly rise for 37 years. "In the past few weeks, global cereal markets experienced a sudden surge in international wheat prices on concerns over wheat shortages," the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation said."The purpose of holding the meeting is for exporting and importing countries to engage in constructive discussions on appropriate reactions to the current market situation."Agency spokesman Christopher Matthews said the meeting of the inter-governmental committee on grains will be held on 24 September, most likely in Rome. He added a large number of member countries had expressed concern about a possible repeat of the food crisis two years ago. But agency officials and other experts have stressed that conditions are different from 2008, when high oil prices and growing demand for biofuels pushed world food stocks to their lowest levels since 1982.The tense atmosphere in developing countries, where food costs up to 70% of family income, erupted in Mozambique this week in three days of riots that left seven people dead, hundreds injured and millions of dollars of damage."This was the worst rioting I have ever seen in my life, people can really turn very violent and lives are at risk, instead of a peaceful demonstration," said Felizmina Fabia, a resident of the capital, Maputo. As violence continued today, with police firing tear gas and rubber bullets, opposition parties and human rights groups criticised the government, saying it failed to gauge the anger that would be unleashed by the 30% bread price increase and hikes in water and electricity tariffs.Alice Mabota, head of the Mozambican League of Human Rights, told Portugal's Lusa news agency: "The government underestimated the situation and can't understand or doesn't want to understand that this is a protest against the higher cost of living."The government-imposed price rise took the cost of a bread roll - the staple of Mozambicans - to 20 US cents (13p) in a country where the average worker earns around $37 (£24) a month.Egyptians have also protested over food prices in recent months, and analysts have warned that riots could follow the jump in prices in Africa and the Middle East. The trend comes after the global recession already put a squeeze on household budgets and intensified the risk of malnutrition.In Mauritania in west Africa, rice prices doubled over the first three months of the year, according to the World Food Programme. Over the same period, the price of corn rose 59% in Zimbabwe and 57% in Mozambique.Niger is suffering severe food shortages and price rises of up to 30%. Save the Children reported last week that the number of severely malnourished children visiting its clinics in Niger has gone up fourfold since the start of the year.In Russia itself, the price of some essential food products soared 30% in August. Officials have blamed panic buying.Susannah Nicol, a regional spokeswoman for the World Food Programme (WFP), warned that its operations could soon be affected. "Any food rise means that donations to the WFP will buy less for the hungry and the poor," she said.In 2007-08, severe food shortages and resulting price rises led to worldwide demonstrations and violence. But analysts say global grain supplies are more abundant this time after bumper harvests in 2008 and 2009.Daniel Sinnathamby [CORR], regional humanitarian coordinator for Oxfam in southern Africa, said: "There is food around, which was not the case in 2000 and 2003 when production failed. Most countries in the region except Zimbabwe seemed to have had fairly good harvests."The question is how does it get around and into the hands of poor people. Governments need to take a look at internal distribution and see who is poor and marginalised."In June a UN report warned that food prices will rise by up to 40% over the next decade due to growing biofuel production and demand from emerging markets.

David Smith

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Bid talk swirls around BP as it nears final cap on leaking well

September 3, 2010

• ExxonMobil discussed politics of BP takeover with the White House
• BP's value had once dropped by more than $100bn, since 20 April BP said today that it was a fortnight away from finally sealing the rogue well in the Gulf of Mexico – potentially triggering bids from rivals for a company whose market value has been dramatically eroded since the April blowout.BP, which also announced that the clean-up bill has hit $8bn (£5bn), has been viewed as vulnerable to takeover since the Deepwater Horizon accident on 20 April.But City experts said the leaking well needed to be finally capped – putting a lid on liabilities – before anyone would dare make a move. There have been successive reports that the cash-rich US firm ExxonMobil – the biggest non-government owned oil company in the world – has discussed the political implications of a BP takeover with the White House .While Barack Obama is said to have raised no competition objections – although some assets would probably have to be sold – industry experts believe he must be concerned about job losses at a time of high US unemployment.Any takeover offer would fit into a wave of merger and acquisition activity across other sectors of business and would inevitably lead to redundancies.No new oil has flowed from BP's Macondo well in the Gulf since 15 July when a cap was inserted but BP said it hoped to seal it for good in mid-September.The bill has steadily risen since the explosion, which triggered an environmental disaster in the region and the country's worst-ever oil spill. In the aftermath, the oil company was forced to abandon hopes of drilling in the Arctic due to its tarnished reputation while BP's chief executive, Tony Hayward, bowed to pressure to resign from the end of this month.Since the processing of claims by people affected by the disaster was transferred to the Gulf Coast Claims Facility, led by Ken Feinberg under a deal with the White House, BP has paid out some $38.5m to 4,900 claimants. Before the transfer, it had made 127,000 payments, worth about $400m. Meanwhile, more than 28,000 people, more than 4,050 ships and dozens of aircraft are still involved in the country's biggest offshore clean-up operation.BP's future was effectively put up for formal discussion in June when the normally-conservative investment bank, JP Morgan Cazenove put out a provocative research note on BP.Fred Lucas, JP Morgan's London-based oil analyst, looked at whether Exxon was the right player to make an £88bn bid. The US group is the financially strongest oil company, he said, adding that it could make a cash and stock offer while spinning off $50bn (£33bn) of refining and marketing assets, resulting in a bid estimated at 473p a share.Certainly BP is very cheap by historic standards. More than $100bn was wiped off BP's market value at one stage since the 20 April explosion.The company has instructed Goldman Sachs and Blackstone to defend against any hostile takeover bids.One City fund manager said last night that he expected Exxon, Chevron or possibly even a Chinese national oil corporation to make a move on BP but Fadel Gheit, veteran oil analyst with the Oppenheimer brokerage in New York, said he doubted the White House would endorse a takeover that would cost more US jobs."When Exxon took over Mobil (in 1998) 50,000 jobs were shed within three years. The real way these mergers are made to work is by cutting costs often by massive layoffs. What politician would support that when unemployment levels are already at their highest for 40 years? It makes a lot of sense on paper but the political realities make it unlikely."Other analysts said a move by a Chinese company was unlikely be agreed in the US, where many of BP's assets are based. Washington vetoed the takeover of Unocal by the China National Offshore Oil Corporation in 2005.

Terry Macalister

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Mexico's foreign minister dampens hopes of Cancun climate deal

September 3, 2010

Patricia Espinosa says success of talks should not be measured by whether countries agree on a new legally binding textMexico's foreign minister today dampened hopes of a breakthrough deal at the Cancun climate change talks in November, saying negotiators are focusing on making progress on smaller issues before perhaps seeking a comprehensive agreement in 2011 or later.Speaking after a two-day meeting in Geneva that dealt with how to pay for carbon-cutting projects in developing countries, Patricia Espinosa said the public should not measure the success of the Cancun talks by whether countries agree on a new legally binding text to combat global warming."I don't think this is the right approach under the current circumstances," she told reporters. "Throughout the world there are really very different needs and interests."Organisers of the Cancun meeting, including the United Nations and the Mexican government, are trying to inject a sense of optimism and trust among negotiators after the last major round of talks in Copenhagen ended in failure last year.Swiss environment minister Moritz Leuenberger, who hosted the closed-door talks in Geneva, insisted countries are "no longer fixated" on agreeing on a successor to the 1997 Kyoto protocol, which scientists say does not go far enough in requiring countries to reduce their carbon emissions.Delegates traveling to Cancun, a Mexican resort city, should consider it a "unique opportunity to consolidate a cooperative framework that can allow us to move to immediate action," said Espinosa.Rich countries like the United States, which rejected the Kyoto protocol, want rapidly developing nations such as China and India to join in the effort to cut pollution. Poor countries say they will agree to a deal only if it includes significant financial aid to help them make their economies more green.Espinosa says such a "green fund" might be agreed in Cancun.But, according to Wendel Trio, climate policy coordinator at Greenpeace International, big differences remain over where the money should come from, who should get it, and how it would be controlled."Given that climate finance is definitely one of the issues that will need to be solved, the fact that we haven't seen progress in the last two days is an indication that governments are not yet willing to move forward," said Trio.The sums involved are vast – $10bn annually for the next three years, $100bn a year starting in 2020 – and both sides are insisting on transparency to ensure commitments are kept and funds are not wasted.On Friday, the Dutch government launched a website aimed at tracking pledges made by rich countries and the programmes toward which they go.Meanwhile, US climate envoy Todd Stern told reporters that failure of a climate bill in the US Senate need not mean the end of attempts to introduce legal restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions in the United States."I am in no sense writing off legislation over time and I'm quite sure the president isn't either," he said.But he rejected any suggestion that the United States might sign up to the Kyoto protocol if no other agreement is agreed to replace it.

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UN debuts website for tracking climate aid

September 3, 2010

Fast Start Finance website to provide information on industrialised nations' climate funding commitmentsThe UN has today launched a new website designed to track climate funding commitments from industrialised countries in a bid to boost confidence that developed economies are delivering on their commitment to provide $30bn in " fast start" funding to help poorer nations combat climate change.The Netherlands-hosted website, titled FastStartFinance.org, was unveiled at a meeting of around 45 nations in Geneva where environment ministers are discussing climate funding proposals.The site will allow industrialised countries to provide data on their climate funding initiatives. So far six European donors, including the UK and Germany, have detailed their fast start funding commitments, providing information on 27 recipient nations.Dutch Environment Minister Tineke Huizinga urged other countries to provide information on how much money they will provide over the next three years to help developing countries cut carbon emissions and adapt to climate change.Christiana Figueres, head of the UN's climate change secretariat, welcomed the new initiative, arguing that it would help to boost confidence in the negotiations ahead of the crucial UN climate change summit in Mexico in November."I have always called this short-term financing the golden key to Cancun," she told reporters. "It is particularly urgent and important to have clarity about the source, the allocation and the disbursement of the short-term funds."The $30bn fast start funding was one of the central commitments of the agreement hammered out at last year's Copenhagen Summit and its delivery is being seen by developing countries as a key test of industrialised nations' commitment to the deal.
Diplomats hope that the provision of $30bn of "new and additional" funding will help to boost trust between the two parties and may serve to break many of the deadlocks that continue to mar the negotiations.However, concerns remains amongst poorer countries over the extent to which the funding committed to date has been diverted from other aid budgets.A recent analysis from Reuters suggested that industrialised countries had already pledged funding equal to the $30bn target, but it is unclear how much of the funding is new.Huizinga admitted the new website would not address such concerns as countries will be allowed to submit their own information, which will not be subject to checks.In an interview with Reuters, Figueres called on developing countries to show some flexibility when deciding where funding is genuinely new, noting that the Copenhagen Agreement was reached after many government's had completed their budgets for 2010 and as a result it was difficult for the them to deliver genuinely additional funding at short notice.

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If Rajendra Pachauri goes, who on Earth would want to be IPCC chair? | John V...

September 3, 2010

No future chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change can ever feel safe if Dr Pachauri is driven out

• George Monbiot: Pachauri innocent but smears continue
• KPMG review of Pachauri's personal financial recordsWhen it first emerged in India that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had made a major blunder about the date the Himalayan glaciers were predicted to melt, the sceptics predictably called for the head of Rajendra Pachauri, the IPCC's chair. There followed a series of malicious falsehoods and disinformation from journalists and bloggers about his business interests.Without waiting for retractions or the evidence of any inquiries or investigations, leading western environmentalists and other commentators shamefully rushed in to say he should resign. And now, following the InterAcademy Council (IAC) report into the IPCC's processes earlier this week (which also found Pachauri not guilty of any misconduct), commentators and editorials in the Times, Financial Times, Time, New Scientist and Telegraph have called for his resignation. The BBC's Roger Harrabin has also suggested that Pachauri's "time appears to be running out". The reason most given? That by staying, Pachauri would give the sceptics more ammunition.This is almost certainly sloppy group-think rather than a co-ordinated attack on Pachauri, but a pattern is emerging of IPCC chairs being shamefully hounded from office by powerful forces in rich countries.Back in 2002 the previous chair, Bob Watson, fell victim to the oil company Exxon and the Bush administration after just three years in office. Corporate America regarded the British-born scientist as far too outspoken and potentially too dangerous to industry, and a stitch-up by the US administration and a few friendly developing countries saw Pachauri replace Watson. Western environmentalists leapt to defend Watson, many implying in a disturbing way that the new chair was inferior. What Bush and his friends did not anticipate was that Pachauri would be just as outspoken about the perils of climate change, and was no patsy when it came to politics.If Pachauri goes – and the decision can only be taken by governments – two years into his second six-year term, then no future IPCC chair can ever feel safe. No decent candidate will ever be appointed again because the job – which involves no salary – will rightly be seen as impossible to do. The next IPCC report, the fifth assessment, will be finalised in 2014 and it can be guaranteed that the newly empowered sceptics will redouble their efforts to pick the most minute of holes in the vast swaths of scientific evidence that it will contain.If a chair must go every time the sceptics and the press attack, then every IPCC chairman will be mercilessly hounded on a personal and political level. Hunting the chair will become a destructive sport not unlike vilifying football managers, guaranteed to destroy continuity, undermine trust, and encourage uncontroversial science. Ousting the IPCC chairman mid-term again would be the ultimate victory for scepticism of the wildest kind.The absurdity of the latest attack is that Pachauri himself called on the IAC report specifically to improve IPCC procedures. If the plenary session of the IPCC does pass the recommendations made, then it will be up to Pachauri to implement them. The report suggested that in future one term only should be served, but it did not suggest that the man who implements reform should have to step down immediately.Pachauri, in fact, has been a rare find and a staunch defender of international science. As the first chair of the IPCC from a developing country he has not just succeeded in engaging Africa and the poorest countries in the climate debate, but has given them a voice. It is quite possible that it is exactly this loud, uncompromising voice from the south demanding justice and compensation from the polluters, that so offends the western press and its commentators.

John Vidal

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Are solar panels the next e-waste?

September 3, 2010

As solar photovoltaic panels go mainstream, Eric Gies looks at the environmental impact of making and disposing of themIn recent years the electronics industry has gained notoriety for creating an endless stream of disposable products that make their way at life's end to developing countries, where poor people without safety gear cut and burn out valuable materials, spilling contaminants into their water, air, and lungs.Solar modules contain some of the same potentially dangerous materials as electronics, including silicon tetrachloride, cadmium, selenium, and sulfur hexafluoride, a potent greenhouse gas. So as solar moves from the fringe to the mainstream, insiders and watchdog groups are beginning to talk about producer responsibility and recycling in an attempt to sidestep the pitfalls of electronic waste and retain the industry's green credibility.Solar modules have an expected lifespan of at least 20 years so most have not yet reached the end of their useful lives. But now, before a significant number of dead panels pile up, is the perfect time to implement a responsible program, according to Sheila Davis, executive director of the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition.The nonprofit environmental group has been a leader in recognizing the problems of e-waste, including hazardous disposal sites in the Bay Area left by the semiconductor industry. Now it is focused on the solar boom in Silicon Valley. Last year the group published a report calling for a "just and sustainable" solar industry, and this year it issued a scorecard of solar companies. The scorecard evaluates recycling and extended producer responsibility for the product's end of life, called takeback; supply chain and green jobs; chemical use and lifecycle analysis; and disclosure.Solar energy is the most widely available resource we have. Every hour, enough solar energy strikes Earth to meet human energy needs for more than a year, according to NASA. Now the solar industry is poised for huge growth in the United States, thanks to policy changes, incentives, technological improvements, and economies of scale. Solar photovoltaics have recently become less expensive than nuclear energy on a per-kilowatt-hour basis, according to a new report from Duke University. Also, solar is widely expected to reach cost parity with fossil fuels in most markets by 2013.In 2009, Greentech Media estimated that U.S. solar demand will continue to increase about 50 percent annually through 2012. The report said the US capacity installed during 2008 was about 320 megawatts, and it predicted that about 2,000 megawatts would be installed during 2012. Such growth would put US capacity ahead of solar leader Spain and potentially Germany as well.While most of the new modules will likely have a long, productive life, factory scrap, transport breakages, and field failures are ready for recycling now. Jennifer Woolwich is collecting these broken solar modules in a warehouse near Phoenix.She founded her company PV Recycling in February 2009 after estimating that she could harvest 500 panels a week from these sources. She is not yet collecting at that capacity, nor does she have enough panels to begin recycling them, but she is talking with solar manufacturers in an effort to win their recycling business."Of those we interviewed, 100 percent want recycling," she said. "Eighty percent want an independent third-party doing the recycling."Woolwich said she has seen a quick evolution in solar manufacturers' attitudes toward recycling: "Last year, there was kind of a 'wait and see, we're not sure how this is going to work' attitude. Over the past 12 months, I've seen a 180. I've seen companies who are hiring consultants to research their whole value chain to identify waste, including the end of life of modules. We've received calls from consumers asking us which companies have takeback programs in place."Solar companies tend to be secretive about their product recipes, making some manufacturers cautious about, yet conceptually open to, third-party recycling."We guarantee that intellectual property will not be put at risk," Woolwich said. "We're not interested in reverse engineering or selling company secrets. We have certificates of destruction that we provide."For now, though, some companies are doing their own recycling.SolarWorld, which received an 88 out of 100 on the toxics coalition's scorecard, has been recycling its own panels since 2003 at its main factory in Freiberg, Germany. That factory now receives broken panels from its U.S. plants in Cabrillo, Calif., Hillsboro, Ore., and Vancouver, Wash."The fact is, there isn't much to recycle," said Ben Santarris, a spokesman for SolarWorld. "In the future we might expand recycling to our U.S. plants or contract with a third-party recycler."First Solar earned a rating of 67 on the scorecard. Headquartered in Tempe, Ariz., it has recycling facilities at its manufacturing sites in Perrysburg, Ohio; Frankfurt (Oder), Germany; and Kulim, Malaysia. Lisa Krueger, vice president of sustainable development, said that so far the company is primarily recycling manufacturing scrap."It's our intention that there would be other recycling facilities worldwide as you get into those volumes," she said.Solar modules employ a variety of technologies, and even models within the same technology can have different ingredients. These materials may or may not be classified as toxic depending on who is regulating them.Dustin Mulvaney is a scientist who works on solar issues at the University of California, Berkeley, and serves as a consultant to the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition. He has analyzed solar modules currently on the market and has outlined for each its key ingredients, including potentially toxic elements and materials that would be valuable to recover in recycling.Used in SolarWorld modules, crystalline photovoltaic is the oldest and most widespread solar technology in the United States, holding 57 percent market share in 2009, according to Greentech Media. "As far as hazardous materials go, you're primarily talking about lead," Mulvaney said.A thin film technology called cadmium telluride makes up about 21 percent of the U.S. market. First Solar panels use this technology.Cadmium may be carcinogenic. Exposure affects the lungs and kidneys and can be fatal. "It's gene toxic and a mutagen, so it has the ability to affect DNA, meaning it could affect reproduction and future generations' DNA," Mulvaney said.Cadmium is technically banned by the European Union's Restriction on Hazardous Substances directive, although the policy currently allows an exemption for its use in solar modules.Still, there's not a lot of data about whether cadmium is toxic in the alloy form in which it's used in thin film. And cadmium isn't likely to go away anytime soon, as it is uniquely efficient at absorbing light.Another thin film material, copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS), also has a cadmium layer. Indium is a potentially hazardous substance, too, particularly in the form of indium tin oxide, Mulvaney said. Studies have linked it to pulmonary disease in flat-screen TV recycling facilities. And selenium has been documented to be a hazardous material.While CIGS currently has a market share of just 6 percent, amorphous silicon, which also has an indium tin oxide layer, holds 16 percent.California's Department of Toxic Substances Control has taken note of the European Union's concern about cadmium and is researching the chemical and physical makeup of various types of modules."We think some solar panels, probably the cadmium thin film type, might be hazardous waste when shredded or disposed of in a landfill," said Charles Corcoran, a hazardous substances scientist at the department.Only panels classified as hazardous would fall under the jurisdiction of the department. It is considering regulatory options to try to steer end users toward recycling rather than disposal."That gets a little complicated becaus...

UK urged to be more open about greenhouse gas emissions

September 3, 2010

Government's chief environmental scientist says emissions have actually risen, rather than fallen, because of carbon in imported goods

• West blamed for rapid increase in China's CO2The UK's greenhouse gas emissions have risen in the past two decades rather than declined, because of the carbon "embedded" in imported goods, the government's chief environment scientist has said.Speaking in a documentary to be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 next week, Professor Bob Watson said there was a need to be more open about the rises in emissions generated by-products made in places such as China but destined for the UK market.Under the current system of counting emissions, greenhouse gases created during the manufacture of goods are counted in the country where they are made, not used.As a result, the true extent of the emissions caused by the UK is masked as many goods consumed here, from electrical products to clothes, are manufactured abroad and imported to this country.Prof Watson said: "At face value UK emissions look like they have decreased 15% or 16% since 1990."But if you take in carbon embedded in our imports, our emissions have gone up about 12%. We've got to be more open about this."A spokesman for the Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc) said: "Our position is that greenhouse gas emissions in the UK have been cut by 22% since 1990."While some emission reductions have resulted from the trend for manufacturing to move overseas, international rules state that emissions from manufacturing are counted by the country of production."Changing that would be very difficult. We don't have jurisdiction over emissions embedded in imports, they're difficult to calculate accurately and not easily verified."He added the government believed the best way of getting an accurate account of global emissions was by reaching a global climate deal, building on last year's Copenhagen accord which he said included commitments by major manufacturers such as China.The accord, in which countries put forward their pledges for national action on emissions, was the only agreement to come out of last year's UN climate talks - which were widely regarded as a failure.

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Smuggler caught after bag holding 95 boa constrictors bursts open at airport

September 3, 2010

A man has pleaded guilty after his bag containing snakes broke open on a luggage belt at Kuala Lumpur International airportA Malaysian man has pleaded guilty to wildlife smuggling after his bag bursting with 95 live boa constrictors broke open on a luggage conveyer belt at Kuala Lumpur International airport, an official said.Keng Liang "Anson" Wong, 52, who was previously convicted of wildlife trafficking in the United States, was charged on Wednesday in a district court for exporting the endangered boas without a permit, said Shamsuddin Osman, an official with Malaysia's wildlife department. The offence carries a penalty of up to seven years in prison and a fine, Shamsuddin said.Wong was arrested on 26 August after airport authorities found the boa constrictors, together with a few other snakes and a turtle, when his bag broke open on a luggage conveyor belt. Wong was transiting from Malaysia's northern Penang state to Indonesia's capital Jakarta.The court will reconvene Monday pending Wong's appointment of a lawyer, Shamsuddin said.He said the criminal charges involve the boas only, because the other animals are not listed as endangered. All of the animals are alive and under the care of wildlife officials, Shamsuddin said.A decade ago, Wong was sentenced to almost six years in prison in the US for running an animal-smuggling ring that prosecutors said imported and sold more than 300 protected reptiles native to Asia and Africa from 1996 until Wong's arrest in Mexico in 1998.Activists say the illegal wildlife trade used to flourish in Malaysia until the country recently stepped up efforts to crack down on it. In July, parliament passed a new law to punish poachers and smugglers more severely, but the act has not yet taken effect.Also on 26 August, customs officers at Bangkok airport in Thailand discovered a drugged tiger cub in a check-in bag filled with stuffed animal toys. An x-ray revealed the animal's beating heart inside the oversized luggage of a 31-year-old Thai woman who was due to board a plane to Iran.In February, a report found that countries across south-east Asia are being systematically drained of wildlife to meet a booming demand for exotic pets in Europe and Japan and traditional medicine in China – posing a greater threat to many species than habitat loss or global warming.More than 35 million animals were legally exported from the region over the past decade, official figures show, and hundreds of millions more could have been taken illegally. Almost half of those traded were seahorses and more than 17 million were reptiles. About 1 million birds and 400,000 mammals were traded, along with 18 million pieces of coral. The situation is so serious that experts have invented a new term – "empty forest syndrome" – to describe the gaping holes in biodiversity left behind.

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Live chat: Peter Melchett kicks off Organic Fortnight

September 3, 2010

With Organic Fortnight starting today, join us at 1pm to discuss organic food, products and farming with Peter Melchett, policy director of the Soil AssociationTo mark the start of Organic Fortnight today and discuss everything to do with organics, we're joined between 1 and 2pm by Peter Melchett.Melchett is policy director at the UK organic food and farming organisation, the Soil Association, which has organised the fortnight of events from a festival to farm visits. Whatever you want to ask on organic produce and issues, this is your chance.Interested in Zac Goldsmith's idea that food for schools, hospitals and care homes should be organic? Want to quiz Melchett on a specific aspect of the Soil Association's work, such as how it certifies organic products? Got a question about organic food and climate change? Or do you want to ask about the recent decline of organic sales?Just post your questions below. Melchett will be online from 1-2pm to do his best to answer.

Adam Vaughan

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BP: Deepwater Horizon oil well will be permanently sealed 'in two weeks'

September 3, 2010

Oil giant hopes ruptured oil well in Gulf of Mexico will be sealed by mid-September, with clean-up bill now at $8bnBP said today it is a fortnight away from sealing the ruptured oil well in the Gulf of Mexico for good, as it revealed that the bill for containing and cleaning up the oil spill – the largest in American history – has reached $8bn.Depending on the weather, the oil giant hopes to seal the well for good in mid-September. Since 15 July, no new oil had flowed into the gulf from the ruptured well, BP said. It continues to search for oil on the surface.The bill has steadily risen since the 20 April oil rig explosion which triggered an environmental disaster in the region. In the aftermath, the oil company has been forced to abandon hopes of drilling in the Arctic due to its tarnished reputation, and BP's chief executive, Tony Hayward, eventually bowed to pressure to resign.Since the processing of claims by people affected by the disaster transferred to the Gulf Coast Claims Facility, led by Ken Feinberg under a deal with the White House, BP has paid out some $38.5m to 4,900 claimants. Before the transfer, it had made 127,000 claims payments, totalling approximately $399m.Around 28,400 people, more than 4,050 ships and dozens of aircraft are still involved in the clean-up operation.

Julia Kollewe

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Cove star stages protest over Japanese dolphin hunt

September 2, 2010

Ric O'Barry, who appeared in the Oscar-winning film, delivers petition signed by 1.7 million people to US embassy in TokyoThe star of an Oscar-winning film about dolphin hunting in Japan delivered a petition to the country's US embassy calling for an end to the practice.Ric O'Barry, 70 – who appeared in The Cove and trained dolphins for 1960s TV show Flipper – was flanked by police and dozens of supporters carrying banners. The petition was signed by 1.7 million people from 151 countries.O'Barry had hoped to deliver it to the Japanese fisheries agency but cancelled the plan after threats from a nationalist group with a history of violence. The Cove, which won this year's Oscar for best documentary, shows fishermen from the town of Taiji who scare dolphins into a cove before killing them slowly by piercing them repeatedly.O'Barry said: "I'm not losing hope. Our voice is being heard in Taiji."The annual hunt in the town began on Wednesday, but boats came back empty. The government allows the hunting of around 20,000 dolphins a year and argues that killing them is no different from breeding cows and pigs for slaughter. Most Japanese have never eaten dolphin meat and, even in Taiji, it is not consumed regularly.

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Oil rig fire triggers new pollution fear in Gulf of Mexico

September 2, 2010

Thirteen workers flee drilling platform but oil company denies spillFresh fears about drilling in the Gulf of Mexico were raised today when fire forced workers to abandon an oil and gas platform, just six months after the BP explosion that created an environmental disaster in the region.The company, Mariner Energy, said none of the 13 workers, who fled the platform and took to the sea in immersion suits, were injured. The coastguard said they were taken by ship to a nearby platform and from there to hospital in Houma, Louisiana, to be checked. Ships, helicopters and a plane were sent by the coastguard from Houston, New Orleans and Mobile.Photographs of smoke billowing from the rig alarmed politicians, environmentalists, fishermen and others on the Gulf coast, still coping with pollution from the BP oil spill.Peter Troedsson, a spokesman for the coastguard, said the fire had been put out and, in spite of initial reports of an oil slick, ships and helicopters at the scene could see no pollution round the platform.He said the initial report had come from a Mariner ship at the scene, but the coastguards could see no oil sheen at the site.The fire is a setback for the oil industry, which has been arguing that drilling in the Gulf is safe and that the BP explosion was a rare event. It came only 24 hours after companies including Mariner had staged a rally in Houston against a moratorium on deepwater drilling in the Gulf. About 5,000 employees had been bussed in for the rally.Barbara Dianne Hagood, a spokesman for Mariner Energy, told the Financial Times on Wednesday: "I have been in the oil and gas industry for 40 years, and this [the Obama] administration is trying to break us. The moratorium they imposed is going to be a financial disaster for the Gulf coast, Gulf coast employees and Gulf coast residents."Another spokesman for Mariner, Patrick Cassidy, said he did not anticipate any pollution, as the platform had not been drilling and there had been no blowout. "There is no hydrocarbon spill," he said.The fire had broken out on a facility above the water, at some distance from the wells, he added.Dave Reed, an oil worker on a platform about 14 miles away, told CNN he could see the smoke and that a call had gone out for ships, helicopters and planes in the region to divert to the area. "It took an hour for the helicopters to get here and all 13 were taken from the water," Reed said.The alarm was raised by a commercial helicopter flying over the platform. A coastguard spokesman, chief petty officer John Edwards, said: "We were able to confirm that all people were accounted for."The fire broke out on the platform Vermilion Oil Rig 380, about 90 miles south of the Louisiana Coast and west of the earlier BP explosion that had killed 11 workers.Both the White House and the coastguard said they did not anticipate any pollution, but that ships equipped with facilities to help clean up spills had been sent to the area as a precaution.The White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs, said: "We obviously have response assets ready for deployment should we receive reports of pollution in the water." The White House stressed that, unlike the BP rig, the platform was not a deepwater facility and was only working to a depth of 340ft.BP's attempts to cap its well, which saw hundreds of millions of gallons of oil spill into the Gulf, were bedevilled by the depth at which they had been drilling. They finally capped the well in July.Mariner is a small company in the process of being taken over by the Apache oil company in a deal worth an estimated $3.9bn (£2.5bn). The deal has not yet been completed. Shares in both companies fell after news of the fire.

Ewen MacAskill

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Tibetan nomads struggle as grasslands disappear from the roof of the world

September 2, 2010

Scientists say desertification of the mountain grasslands of the Tibetan plateau is accelerating climate changeLike generations of Tibetan nomads before him, Phuntsok Dorje makes a living raising yaks and other livestock on the vast alpine grasslands that provide a thatch on the roof of the world.But in recent years the vegetation around his home, the Tibetan plateau, has been destroyed by rising temperatures, excess livestock and plagues of insects and rodents.The high-altitude meadows are rarely mentioned in discussions of global warming, but the changes to this ground have a profound impact on Tibetan politics and the world's ecological security.For Phuntsok Dorje, the issue is more down to earth. He is used to dramatically shifting cloudscapes above his head, but it is the changes below his feet that make him uneasy."The grass used to be up to here," Phuntsok says, indicating a point on his leg a little below the knee. "Twenty years ago, we had to scythe it down. But now, well, you can see for yourself. It's so short it looks like moss."The green prairie that used to surround his tent has become a brown desert. All that is left of the grasslands here are yellowing blotches on a stony surface riddled with rodent holes.It is the same across much of this plateau, which encompasses an area a third of the size of the US.DesertificationScientists say the desertification of the mountain grasslands is accelerating climate change. Without its thatch the roof of the world is less able to absorb moisture and more likely to radiate heat.Partly because of this the Tibetan mountains have warmed two to three times faster than the global average; the permafrost and glaciers of the "Third Pole" are melting.To make matters worse, the towering Kunlun, Himalayan and Karakorum ranges that surround the plateau act as a chimney for water vapour – which has a stronger greenhouse gas effect than carbon dioxide – to be convected high into the stratosphere. Mixed with pollution, dust and black carbon (soot) from India and elsewhere, this spreads a brown cloud across swaths of the Eurasian landmass. When permafrost melts it can also release methane, another powerful greenhouse gas. Xiao Ziniu, the director general of the Beijing climate centre, says Tibet's climate is the most sensitive in Asia and influences the globe.Grassland degradation is evident along the twisting mountain road from Yushu to Xining, which passes through the Three Rivers national park, the source of the Yangtze, Yellow and Lancang rivers. Along some stretches the landscape is so barren it looks more like the Gobi desert than an alpine meadow.Phuntsok Dorje (name has been changed) is among the last of the nomads scratching a living in one of the worst affected areas. "There used to be five families on this plain. Now we are the only one left and there is not enough grass even for us," he says. "It's getting drier and drier and there are more and more rats every year."Until about 10 years ago the nearest town, Maduo, used to be the richest in Qinghai province thanks to herding, fishing and mining, but residents say their economy has dried up along with the nearby wetlands."This all used to be a lake. There wasn't a road here then. Even a Jeep couldn't have made it through," said a Tibetan guide, Dalang Jiri, as we drove through the area. By one estimate, 70% of the former rangeland is now desert."Maduo is now very poor. There is no way to make a living," said a Tibetan teacher who gave only one name, Angang. "The mines have closed and grasslands are destroyed. People just depend on the money they get from the government. They just sit on the kang [a raised, heated, floor] and wait for the next payment."Many of the local people are former herders moved off the land under a controversial "ecological migration" scheme launched in 2003. The government in Beijing is in the advanced stages of relocating between 50% and 80% of the 2.25 million nomads on the Tibetan plateau. According to state media, this programme aims to restore the grasslands, prevent overgrazing and improve living standards.The Tibetan government-in-exile says the scheme does little for the environment and is aimed at clearing the land for mineral extraction and moving potential supporters of the Dalai Lama into urban areas where they can be more easily controlled.Qinghai is dotted with resettlement centres, many on the way to becoming ghettos. Nomads are paid an annual allowance – of 3,000 yuan (about £300) to 8,000 yuan per household – to give up herding for 10 years and be provided with housing. As in some native American reservations in the US and Canada, they have trouble finding jobs. Many end up either unemployed or recycling rubbish or collecting dung.Some feel cheated. "If I could go back to herding, I would. But the land has been taken by the state and the livestock has been sold off so we are stuck here. It's hopeless," said Shang Lashi, a resident at a resettlement centre in Yushu. "We were promised jobs. But there is no work. We live on the 3,000 yuan a year allowance, but the officials deduct money from that for the housing, which was supposed to be free."Their situation was made worse by the earthquake that struck Yushu earlier this year, killing hundreds. People were crushed when their new concrete homes collapsed, a risk they would not have faced in their itinerant life on the grasslands. Many are once again living under canvas – in disaster relief tents and without land or cattle.In a sign of the sensitivity of the subject, the authorities declined to officially answer the Guardian's questions. Privately, officials said resettlement and other efforts to restore the grassland, including fencing off the worst areas, were worthwhile."The situation has improved slightly in the past five years. We are working on seven areas, planting trees and trying to restore the ecosystem around closed gold mines," said one environmental officer. The problem would not be solved in the short term. "This area is particularly fragile. Once the grasslands are destroyed, they rarely come back. It is very difficult to grow grass at high altitude."The programme's effectiveness is questioned by others, including Wang Yongchen, founder of the Green Earth Volunteers NGO and a regular visitor to the plateau for 10 years. "Overgrazing was considered a possible cause of the grassland degradation, but things haven't improved since the herds were enclosed and the nomads moved. I think climate change and mining have had a bigger impact."Assessing the programme is complicated by political tensions. In the past year, three prominent Tibetan environmental campaigners have been arrested after exposing corruption and flaws in wildlife conservation on the plateau.InfestationAnother activist, who declined to give his name, said it was difficult to comment. "The situation is complicated. Some areas of grassland are getting better. Others are worse. There are so many factors involved."A growing population of pika, gerbils, mice and other rodents is also blamed for degradation of the land because they burrow into the soil and eat grass roots.Zoologists say this highlights how ecosystems can quickly move out of balance. Rodent numbers have increased dramatically in 10 years because their natural predators – hawks, eagles and leopards – have been hunted close to extinction. Belatedly, the authorities are trying to protect wildlife and attract birds of prey by erecting steel vantage points to replace felled trees.There is widespread agreement that this climatically important region needs more study."People have not paid enough attention to the Tibetan plateau. They call it the Third Pole but actually it is more important than the Arctic or Antarctic because it is closer to human communities. This area needs a great deal more research," said Yang Yong, a Chinese explorer and environmental activist. "The changes to glaciers and grasslands are very fast...