Glaciers could be melting underwater at a faster rate than previously thought, new research suggests.

Scientists have developed a method to directly measure the submarine melt rate of a tidewater glacier.

Their results suggest current theoretical models may be massively underestimating glacial melt.

Flows

Previously direct melting measurements have been made on ice shelves in Antarctica by boring through to the ice-ocean interface beneath.

But where there are vertical-face glaciers that end at the ocean, those techniques are not possible.

University of Oregon oceanographer Dave Sutherland said: “We don’t have that platform to be able to access the ice in this way. Tidewater glaciers are always calving and moving very rapidly, and you don’t want to take a boat up there too closely.”

In a National Science Foundation-funded project, a team of scientists led by Mr Sutherland studied the subsurface melting of the LeConte Glacier, which flows into LeConte Bay south of Juneau, Alaska.

Melt

The findings, which scientists say could lead to improved forecasting of climate-driven sea level rise, are published in the journal Science.

In the past, research on the underwater melting of glaciers has mainly relied on theoretical modelling, measuring conditions near the glaciers and then applying theory to predict melt rates. But the theory has rarely been tested, the researchers say.

The team deployed a multibeam sonar to scan the glacier’s ocean-ice interface from a fishing vessel six times in August 2016 and five times in May 2017.

Co-author Rebecca Jackson, an oceanographer at Rutgers University-New Brunswick, said: “We measured both the ocean properties in front of the glacier and the melt rates, and we found that they are not related in the way we expected.

“These two sets of measurements show that melt rates are significantly, sometimes up to a factor of 100, higher than existing theory would predict.”

Ambient

There are two main categories of glacial melt – discharge-driven and ambient melt. Subglacial discharge occurs when large volumes, or plumes, of buoyant meltwater are released below the glacier.

When the plume combines with surrounding water to pick up speed and volume, the current steadily eats away from the glacier face. Most previous studies have focused on these discharge plumes.

However, they typically affect only a narrow area of the glacier face, while ambient melt covers the rest of it.

The researchers say predictions have estimated ambient melt to be 10 to 100 times less than the discharge melt, and therefore it is often disregarded as insignificant.

Feedbacks

The team found submarine melt rates were high across the glacier’s face over both of the seasons surveyed, and that it increases from spring to summer.

While the team recognises the study only focused on one marine-terminating glacier, they believe the new approach should be useful to any researchers.

“Future sea level rise is primarily determined by how much ice is stored in these ice sheets,” Mr Sutherland said.

“We are focusing on the ocean-ice interfaces, because that’s where the extra melt and ice is coming from that controls how fast ice is lost. To improve the modelling, we have to know more about where melting occurs and the feedbacks involved.”

This Author

Nina Massey is the PA science correspondent.

Glaciers could be melting underwater at a faster rate than previously thought, new research suggests.

Scientists have developed a method to directly measure the submarine melt rate of a tidewater glacier.

Their results suggest current theoretical models may be massively underestimating glacial melt.

Flows

Previously direct melting measurements have been made on ice shelves in Antarctica by boring through to the ice-ocean interface beneath.

But where there are vertical-face glaciers that end at the ocean, those techniques are not possible.

University of Oregon oceanographer Dave Sutherland said: “We don’t have that platform to be able to access the ice in this way. Tidewater glaciers are always calving and moving very rapidly, and you don’t want to take a boat up there too closely.”

In a National Science Foundation-funded project, a team of scientists led by Mr Sutherland studied the subsurface melting of the LeConte Glacier, which flows into LeConte Bay south of Juneau, Alaska.

Melt

The findings, which scientists say could lead to improved forecasting of climate-driven sea level rise, are published in the journal Science.

In the past, research on the underwater melting of glaciers has mainly relied on theoretical modelling, measuring conditions near the glaciers and then applying theory to predict melt rates. But the theory has rarely been tested, the researchers say.

The team deployed a multibeam sonar to scan the glacier’s ocean-ice interface from a fishing vessel six times in August 2016 and five times in May 2017.

Co-author Rebecca Jackson, an oceanographer at Rutgers University-New Brunswick, said: “We measured both the ocean properties in front of the glacier and the melt rates, and we found that they are not related in the way we expected.

“These two sets of measurements show that melt rates are significantly, sometimes up to a factor of 100, higher than existing theory would predict.”

Ambient

There are two main categories of glacial melt – discharge-driven and ambient melt. Subglacial discharge occurs when large volumes, or plumes, of buoyant meltwater are released below the glacier.

When the plume combines with surrounding water to pick up speed and volume, the current steadily eats away from the glacier face. Most previous studies have focused on these discharge plumes.

However, they typically affect only a narrow area of the glacier face, while ambient melt covers the rest of it.

The researchers say predictions have estimated ambient melt to be 10 to 100 times less than the discharge melt, and therefore it is often disregarded as insignificant.

Feedbacks

The team found submarine melt rates were high across the glacier’s face over both of the seasons surveyed, and that it increases from spring to summer.

While the team recognises the study only focused on one marine-terminating glacier, they believe the new approach should be useful to any researchers.

“Future sea level rise is primarily determined by how much ice is stored in these ice sheets,” Mr Sutherland said.

“We are focusing on the ocean-ice interfaces, because that’s where the extra melt and ice is coming from that controls how fast ice is lost. To improve the modelling, we have to know more about where melting occurs and the feedbacks involved.”

This Author

Nina Massey is the PA science correspondent.

Glaciers could be melting underwater at a faster rate than previously thought, new research suggests.

Scientists have developed a method to directly measure the submarine melt rate of a tidewater glacier.

Their results suggest current theoretical models may be massively underestimating glacial melt.

Flows

Previously direct melting measurements have been made on ice shelves in Antarctica by boring through to the ice-ocean interface beneath.

But where there are vertical-face glaciers that end at the ocean, those techniques are not possible.

University of Oregon oceanographer Dave Sutherland said: “We don’t have that platform to be able to access the ice in this way. Tidewater glaciers are always calving and moving very rapidly, and you don’t want to take a boat up there too closely.”

In a National Science Foundation-funded project, a team of scientists led by Mr Sutherland studied the subsurface melting of the LeConte Glacier, which flows into LeConte Bay south of Juneau, Alaska.

Melt

The findings, which scientists say could lead to improved forecasting of climate-driven sea level rise, are published in the journal Science.

In the past, research on the underwater melting of glaciers has mainly relied on theoretical modelling, measuring conditions near the glaciers and then applying theory to predict melt rates. But the theory has rarely been tested, the researchers say.

The team deployed a multibeam sonar to scan the glacier’s ocean-ice interface from a fishing vessel six times in August 2016 and five times in May 2017.

Co-author Rebecca Jackson, an oceanographer at Rutgers University-New Brunswick, said: “We measured both the ocean properties in front of the glacier and the melt rates, and we found that they are not related in the way we expected.

“These two sets of measurements show that melt rates are significantly, sometimes up to a factor of 100, higher than existing theory would predict.”

Ambient

There are two main categories of glacial melt – discharge-driven and ambient melt. Subglacial discharge occurs when large volumes, or plumes, of buoyant meltwater are released below the glacier.

When the plume combines with surrounding water to pick up speed and volume, the current steadily eats away from the glacier face. Most previous studies have focused on these discharge plumes.

However, they typically affect only a narrow area of the glacier face, while ambient melt covers the rest of it.

The researchers say predictions have estimated ambient melt to be 10 to 100 times less than the discharge melt, and therefore it is often disregarded as insignificant.

Feedbacks

The team found submarine melt rates were high across the glacier’s face over both of the seasons surveyed, and that it increases from spring to summer.

While the team recognises the study only focused on one marine-terminating glacier, they believe the new approach should be useful to any researchers.

“Future sea level rise is primarily determined by how much ice is stored in these ice sheets,” Mr Sutherland said.

“We are focusing on the ocean-ice interfaces, because that’s where the extra melt and ice is coming from that controls how fast ice is lost. To improve the modelling, we have to know more about where melting occurs and the feedbacks involved.”

This Author

Nina Massey is the PA science correspondent.

Glaciers could be melting underwater at a faster rate than previously thought, new research suggests.

Scientists have developed a method to directly measure the submarine melt rate of a tidewater glacier.

Their results suggest current theoretical models may be massively underestimating glacial melt.

Flows

Previously direct melting measurements have been made on ice shelves in Antarctica by boring through to the ice-ocean interface beneath.

But where there are vertical-face glaciers that end at the ocean, those techniques are not possible.

University of Oregon oceanographer Dave Sutherland said: “We don’t have that platform to be able to access the ice in this way. Tidewater glaciers are always calving and moving very rapidly, and you don’t want to take a boat up there too closely.”

In a National Science Foundation-funded project, a team of scientists led by Mr Sutherland studied the subsurface melting of the LeConte Glacier, which flows into LeConte Bay south of Juneau, Alaska.

Melt

The findings, which scientists say could lead to improved forecasting of climate-driven sea level rise, are published in the journal Science.

In the past, research on the underwater melting of glaciers has mainly relied on theoretical modelling, measuring conditions near the glaciers and then applying theory to predict melt rates. But the theory has rarely been tested, the researchers say.

The team deployed a multibeam sonar to scan the glacier’s ocean-ice interface from a fishing vessel six times in August 2016 and five times in May 2017.

Co-author Rebecca Jackson, an oceanographer at Rutgers University-New Brunswick, said: “We measured both the ocean properties in front of the glacier and the melt rates, and we found that they are not related in the way we expected.

“These two sets of measurements show that melt rates are significantly, sometimes up to a factor of 100, higher than existing theory would predict.”

Ambient

There are two main categories of glacial melt – discharge-driven and ambient melt. Subglacial discharge occurs when large volumes, or plumes, of buoyant meltwater are released below the glacier.

When the plume combines with surrounding water to pick up speed and volume, the current steadily eats away from the glacier face. Most previous studies have focused on these discharge plumes.

However, they typically affect only a narrow area of the glacier face, while ambient melt covers the rest of it.

The researchers say predictions have estimated ambient melt to be 10 to 100 times less than the discharge melt, and therefore it is often disregarded as insignificant.

Feedbacks

The team found submarine melt rates were high across the glacier’s face over both of the seasons surveyed, and that it increases from spring to summer.

While the team recognises the study only focused on one marine-terminating glacier, they believe the new approach should be useful to any researchers.

“Future sea level rise is primarily determined by how much ice is stored in these ice sheets,” Mr Sutherland said.

“We are focusing on the ocean-ice interfaces, because that’s where the extra melt and ice is coming from that controls how fast ice is lost. To improve the modelling, we have to know more about where melting occurs and the feedbacks involved.”

This Author

Nina Massey is the PA science correspondent.

The newly elected leader of the Liberal Democrats, Jo Swinson, has a chequered history in relation to the environment – which is somewhat eclipsed by her dire record on poverty and workers’ rights.

The Lib Dems elected Swinson by a margin of 20,000 votes over her opponent, former energy secretary Ed Davey, on Monday of last week. Swinson, who has worked in corporate PR, was the party’s deputy leader, and held employment and equalities posts under the 2010-15 coalition government with the Conservatives.

In May, Andy Briggs, co-chair of pro-market Lib Dem faction Liberal Reform, welcomed Swinson’s election as a move to the neoliberal right after four years under more left-leaning, social-democratic leaders. Briggs applauded the former minister’s record in office, praising her for opposing energy price caps, rejecting gender quotas and supporting zero-hours contracts.

Folded

Swinson’s victory speech in London emphasised Brexit, populism, climate change and living standards. “Liberal Democrats can make a real difference,” she told the crowd, “when we take power and put our principles into practice.” She nevertheless continued to rule out coalition with Jeremy Corbyn or Boris Johnson.

The incoming leader spoke of “a planet that is at breaking point”, adding: “We are the last generation who can act to stop catastrophic climate change, and yet the government is failing to take the urgent action we need.”

Though Swinson made climate a major campaign theme, her record on the issue proves remarkably patchy. She talks a good game on the climate emergency, and boasts of joining April’s Extinction Rebellion protests. Unlike most XR activists, however, she has taken money from fracking interests and voted down key regulations on the industry.

In July 2017 Swinson took a personal donation of £10,000 from Mark Petterson, director of Warwick Energy – a company with fracking licences across England – and a further £4,000 in January 2018. This was after she had voted against an eighteen-month fracking ban, against a review of the industry’s environmental, health and social effects and against requiring frackers to get environmental permits.

Petterson’s co-directors, John Sulley and Rob Jones, had previously paid out $48 million settling a securities fraud suit after their $2.3 billion company Independent Energy collapsed in 2000. They founded Warwick Energy just weeks after its predecessor folded.

Wellbeing

Swinson is open to concerns that she sometimes seems to support climate action in principle but oppose it in practice. In 2012 she voted to create a Green Investment Bank; yet that same year she voted against making the bank help cut UK emissions in line with the law. 

She voted for 2008’s Climate Change Act and wants to make companies report on climate risks. Yet in 2013 she opposed setting CO2 targets per unit of electricity and voted against closing a loophole on fossil fuel plants’ emissions standards.

Swinson claims she has “campaigned tirelessly to save our environment” since childhood and believes “the economy must work for the planet”.

Yet on key green issues like the badger cull, high-speed rail and renewables subsidies, Swinson has repeatedly voted with the government and against environmentalists.

In 2009 she founded a parliamentary group on wellbeing economics; in 2011 she voted to sell off England’s forests. And she has consistently voted against curbing the UK’s ballooning rail fares.

Unlawful

The MP has been consistent only in slamming Easter egg containers – she tabled a 2007 bill against excessive packaging – and taxing flights. She has a mixed record on fuel taxes, and on she has taken no action in relation to public control of trains and buses.

Meanwhile, social justice campaigners have condemned Swinson’s record of aiding Tory attacks on the poor – slashing housing and council tax benefits, backing the bedroom tax, cutting legal aid, slashing benefits for the disabled and out-of-work, and opposing job guarantees for the long-term unemployed.

“We have families where both parents are working full-time on the so-called National Living Wage but who can’t provide the basics for their children,” Swinson told her London audience on Monday: “I’m talking about food, school uniforms, a warm home.” The UK’s “social contract”, she added, is “fundamentally broken”.

Yet as employment minister under the coalition, Swinson opposed a living wage and froze the minimum wage for young people. Her department considered freezing or even cutting the minimum wage if the UK hit a recession.

She backed the tuition fee hikes that her party had promised to oppose – a promise she claimed to regret. She priced thousands out of access to justice by introducing employment tribunal fees of up to £1,200 – a measure Britain’s Supreme Court later ruled unlawful.

Values

Sociologist Phil Burton-Cartledge dubs Swinson a “yellow Tory”, finding she voted with the Conservative whip nearly 850 times between 2010 and 2015 – more often than senior Tories Jeremy Hunt and Michael Gove. Swinson herself penned a March 2018 Mail on Sunday column demanding a statue of Thatcher in Parliament Square.

On the environment, then, Swinson’s record raises serious questions. For one, are the Lib Dems truly committed to urgent action, and how negotiable is that commitment when its leaders scent real power?

More fundamentally for twenty-first century liberals, can centrist parties sustain incremental green policies while ignoring poverty and inequality? And what happens when environmental tinkering accompanies attacks on the poor, entrenches inequality, or hurts struggling people?

Two recent cases illustrate the risks. Last April, Nick Clegg’s former policy director Polly Mackenzie provoked fury when she revealed the Lib Dems had won a trivial green policy – a 5p charge on plastic bags – by agreeing to help tighten benefit sanctions.

Carol Lindsay, the editor of Liberal Democrat Voice, expressed horror and disbelief that “such a brutal policy was traded in such a blasé fashion”, calling the decision an ignorant, “completely avoidable” mistake that “caused untold hardship” and betrayed the party’s stated values.

Jo Swinson may promise the Earth, then – but her record raises questions about her ability and willingness to deliver.

Like liberal centrists elsewhere, she will need to confront the inequality and stagnant living standards that regularly unravel market-driven environmentalism. And many will doubt that a “moderate” neoliberal party of professional middle-class supporters and wealthy funders truly has the stomach for that fight.

This Author

Tim Holmes is an ‘active bystander’ and also researcher, writer and editor. He tweets at @timbird84.

Glaciers could be melting underwater at a faster rate than previously thought, new research suggests.

Scientists have developed a method to directly measure the submarine melt rate of a tidewater glacier.

Their results suggest current theoretical models may be massively underestimating glacial melt.

Flows

Previously direct melting measurements have been made on ice shelves in Antarctica by boring through to the ice-ocean interface beneath.

But where there are vertical-face glaciers that end at the ocean, those techniques are not possible.

University of Oregon oceanographer Dave Sutherland said: “We don’t have that platform to be able to access the ice in this way. Tidewater glaciers are always calving and moving very rapidly, and you don’t want to take a boat up there too closely.”

In a National Science Foundation-funded project, a team of scientists led by Mr Sutherland studied the subsurface melting of the LeConte Glacier, which flows into LeConte Bay south of Juneau, Alaska.

Melt

The findings, which scientists say could lead to improved forecasting of climate-driven sea level rise, are published in the journal Science.

In the past, research on the underwater melting of glaciers has mainly relied on theoretical modelling, measuring conditions near the glaciers and then applying theory to predict melt rates. But the theory has rarely been tested, the researchers say.

The team deployed a multibeam sonar to scan the glacier’s ocean-ice interface from a fishing vessel six times in August 2016 and five times in May 2017.

Co-author Rebecca Jackson, an oceanographer at Rutgers University-New Brunswick, said: “We measured both the ocean properties in front of the glacier and the melt rates, and we found that they are not related in the way we expected.

“These two sets of measurements show that melt rates are significantly, sometimes up to a factor of 100, higher than existing theory would predict.”

Ambient

There are two main categories of glacial melt – discharge-driven and ambient melt. Subglacial discharge occurs when large volumes, or plumes, of buoyant meltwater are released below the glacier.

When the plume combines with surrounding water to pick up speed and volume, the current steadily eats away from the glacier face. Most previous studies have focused on these discharge plumes.

However, they typically affect only a narrow area of the glacier face, while ambient melt covers the rest of it.

The researchers say predictions have estimated ambient melt to be 10 to 100 times less than the discharge melt, and therefore it is often disregarded as insignificant.

Feedbacks

The team found submarine melt rates were high across the glacier’s face over both of the seasons surveyed, and that it increases from spring to summer.

While the team recognises the study only focused on one marine-terminating glacier, they believe the new approach should be useful to any researchers.

“Future sea level rise is primarily determined by how much ice is stored in these ice sheets,” Mr Sutherland said.

“We are focusing on the ocean-ice interfaces, because that’s where the extra melt and ice is coming from that controls how fast ice is lost. To improve the modelling, we have to know more about where melting occurs and the feedbacks involved.”

This Author

Nina Massey is the PA science correspondent.

We all depend on healthy oceans. These vast bodies of water generate more than half of the oxygen we breathe, help regulate the climate and are a source of food, medicine and sustenance for billions of people around the world.

And yet our oceans, and the species who call them home, are under siege from threats as diverse as plastic pollution, overfishing and an emerging deep-sea mining industry. 

That is why ‘It is time to listen to the oceans’ will be the leading message of the first ever Uruguayan Oceans Conference.  On Friday 26 July, marine specialists will gather in the small Lain American nation for a public discussion about how to truly protect the rich marine life of the South Atlantic Ocean. 

Rich waters

Organised by the Oceanosanos (‘Healthy Oceans’), a project of local NGO the Organisation for Cetacean Conservation (OCC-Uruguay) and The Gaia Foundation, the conference will bring together international guest speakers from Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Spain with some of Uruguay’s leading voices on ocean conservation. 

It will be an opportunity for government officials, the fishing industry, marine specialists, presidential candidates, legislators, journalists, civil society and youth to discuss the future of Uruguay’s waters.

Off the coast of Uruguay, the convergence of a warm ocean current from Brazil and the cold Malvinas (Falklands) current creates one of the richest aquatic systems in the world. The region acts as a migratory route for whales, dolphins, seals, sea lions, fish and birds, including more than 100 threatened, vulnerable or critically endangered species.

This abundance of oceanic life makes Uruguay a vital country for marine and coastal protection down the entire coast of Latin America, from Brazil’s north-east coast to the tip of Argentina. 

Uruguay’s rich oceans have also supported the sustainable livelihoods of many small-scale fisher-people for generations. But in recent times these waters and the country’s strategic location on the western side of the South Atlantic have attracted more rapacious, industrial fishing interests.

Over-fishing and brutal practices including shark and ray finning are now jeopardising the health of marine ecosystems, the livelihoods of small fisher-people and the human rights of ship crews from as far away as South East Asia. 

Unregulated fishing

The port of Montevideo, Uruguay’s capital, has become the second most visited port for vessels involved in IUU (illegal, unreported, unregulated) fishing; an industry with deep ties to organised crime worldwide. 

Oceanosanos recently revealed the staggering ecological and human costs of IUU fishing in Uruguayan waters. 

Milko Schvartzman, coordinator of Oceanosanos, said: “Huge fleets of vessels, from China, South Korea and Spain, among other countries, are responsible for the mostly uncontrolled depredation of marine fauna, in their search for squid, hake, rays and sharks.

“The situation is worsened by trans-shipment on the high seas, which can camouflage a multitude of activities related to illegal fishing: the laundering of undeclared fish, corruption, and even the trafficking of drugs, weapons and people.”

Oceanosanos investigations have led to a series of news reports that have put IUU fishing in the national spotlight, and recently screened Ghost Fleet, a powerful film that casts light on the deep ties between IUU fishing and modern slavery, sharing the harrowing stories of people enlisted as crew members in South East Asia and kept for months at sea against their will to work on trawlers; often those fishing illegally. 

Mega port

As a result of these investigations, IUU is now becoming an issue of national political importance.

Members of Oceanosanos have met with candidates for the upcoming Presidential elections to secure their commitment to ending Uruguay’s complicit role in IUU fishing and taking action for ocean health. 

Future decisions about plans to construct a new Chinese-funded mega-port in Montevideo will be a test of that political commitment.

Chinese ShanDong BaoMa Fishery Group Co is proposing and planning to build a huge new fishing port in Montevideo. At a cost of $210 million, and rising, this new industrial-scale port would handle two million tons of merchandise, process 230,000 tons of aquatic products, such as squid, and allow for the repair of 500 deep-sea vessels, per year.

Industrialise fishing

But why is a Chinese fishing company building massive infrastructure on the other side of the Atlantic in Uruguay?

Rodrigo García, Director of OCC Uruguay, said: “There are 164 companies in China engaged in deep-sea fishing, with almost 3,000 vessels distributed in some 30 countries and in international waters such as the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans.”

ShanDong BaoMa’s planned port would support Chinese and other fleets industrialise fishing in the South Atlantic. It would increase the amount of fishing in Uruguayan waters, including of overfished and endangered species, allowing foreign vessels to stay longer and process fish and other marine creatures directly in Montevideo.

Whereas today Chinese vessels must travel back every two years for refitting and repairs, the new port would mean they could stay in South Atlantic waters indefinitely. 

Oceanosanos questions the compatibility of the Government’s duties to “ensure conservation, the management, the sustainable development and the responsible use of hydrobiological resources and the ecosystems ” (fishing law 19.175, article 2) and the construction of the port. 

“The pressure on [fish]stocks that are already exploited to the limit or over-exploited will increase,” says Milko Schvartzman.

Mobilized opposition

This week reports revealed ShanDong BaoMa will not be permitted to build its port at the company’s preferred location of Punta Yeguas. This constitutes a huge success for the Oceanosanos project and the many communities, fisher-peoples and youth groups who have mobilised in opposition to the port.

García is cautiously optimistic about the victory: “There was a lot of pressure and added to that was a pre-electoral period. The port will not be carried out in Punta Yeguas, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be elsewhere.” 

This caution appears to be well-placed as, according to reports from within Uruguay, the company has been offered an alternative site at nearby Punta Sayago, just 1km away, by the Uruguayan Government. There is work still to be done.

In the midst of these struggles marine experts will come together with officials holding the power to help protect Uruguay’s waters at the nation’s first Oceans Conference. 

IUU and port impacts will feature high on the agenda, as will establishing effective Marine Protected Areas, ensuring that local fishermen can maintain sustainable livelihoods based on the sea, combatting plastics and marine pollution.

Natural heritage

García is hopeful the conference – declared of national interest by the Ministry for Housing, Territorial Ordering and the Environment – will be a starting point for actions within Uruguay to ensure the health of oceans for future generations in the wake of the rejection of the original port plans.

He believes Uruguay is a small country with big potential as a voice in marine conservation. And, critically in an election year, the people of Uruguay seem to be with the ocean protectors.

García said: “The Uruguayan citizenship is very interested and concerned about the marine situation, the contamination of plastics, and development projects that affect the natural heritage and sovereignty of this country.”

This Author

Fiona Wilton, is Programmes Coordinator for Sacred Lands and Wilderness at The Gaia Foundation. Based in Uruguay, she works closely with Gaia partner organisation Organización para la Conservación de Cetáceos (OCC Uruguay) to support their efforts to protect the South Atlantic.

Hannibal Rhoades is Communications Coordinator at The Gaia Foundation. His articles have featured in publications including The Ecologist, Intercontinental Cry, Truth Out, Ecological Citizen, Resilience, Red Pepper, Eco-instigator, Kosmos Journal and others.

Get involved

Tune in to Uruguay’s first oceans conference:

• Free Entry – registration required 
• When?  Friday 26 July – 5.30pm-8.30pm
• Where?  Kibón Avanza (Rambla Charles De Gaulle), Montevideo, Uruguay

For more information contact: 

• Milko Schvartzman  
• Rodrigo García 
• Fiona Wilton

Concern is mounting for the safety of greyhounds being raced at four tracks across England this week despite temperatures reaching an all-time high.

Animal welfare campaigners from the League Against Cruel Sports and the greyhound welfare group Greyt Exploitations say races should be cancelled as temperatures breach 39C or 100.F in parts of the UK.

The greyhounds will be transported from their kennels and then paraded and raced at the tracks in the extreme conditions, putting them at risk of heatstroke, according to campaigners. 

Soaring temperatures

Nick Weston, Head of Campaigns at the League Against Cruel Sports, said: “There have already been reports of dogs dying after just being walked in this heat, let alone racing.

“These races still going ahead despite the soaring temperatures is yet another clear example of how greyhound welfare is out far behind profit, and why this ‘sport’ needs to end in the UK.

“This flies in the face of the advice being given to animal lovers caring for their own pets during the current heatwave.”

Five of the six greyhound races due to take place during the day yesterday were cancelled but racing went ahead at Sunderland. 

The Greyhound Board of Britain GBGB, the self-regulatory body for greyhound racing in Great Britain, recently announced a new hot weather policy which states that greyhound racing should be cancelled at 34C or above.

Absolutely scandalous 

This is despite the Society of Greyhound Veterinarians suggesting: “If the temperature is in the region of 28 to 30C serious consideration should be given to suspending racing and that racing should not take place in environmental temperatures in excess of 30C”.

Trudy Baker, Coordinator at Greyt Exploitations, said: “It is absolutely scandalous that while the RSPCA are advising to keep dogs in the cool when temperatures are hitting 30°C or more and the Society of Greyhound Vets has advised that racing should not take place in environmental temperatures in excess of 30°C.

“The GBGB’s new Hot Weather Policy uses a maximum temperature of 34°C at which dogs can race with no reference to humidity levels that play an important part in the dogs ability to keep cool.”

“There is still no requirement for trainer’s vans or track kennels to have air-conditioning despite a previous incident where a greyhound died of heatstroke while being kennelled at a track”

Greyhound racing in the UK sees approximately 15,000 greyhounds being kept for racing at any one time. The greyhound industry figures indicate that nearly 1,000 greyhounds died last year. Many were put down trackside due to injuries.

Greyhounds stop racing at around three years old and many are put down as they are deemed as no longer valuable.

This Article

This article is based on a press release from the League Against Cruel Sports. 

Friends of the Earth is urging Boris Johnson to put responding to the climate emergency at the heart of his new government after the Met Office confirmed the UK’s maximum temperature record for July has been broken.

Friends of the Earth chief executive, Craig Bennett said: “The dangerous heatwave battering Britain is a stark warning to Boris Johnson on the urgent need to end the country’s reliance on climate-wrecking fossil fuels.

“Developing the UK’s vast renewable power potential, insulating our heat-leaking homes and investing in modern, carbon-free transport systems would slash emissions, create thousands of new jobs and put the UK at the forefront of building a cleaner, safer future.”

Cutting emissions

Bennett continued: “The first hundred days are crucial – will the new Prime Minister take decisive action to deal with the climate emergency, or dish up more hot air?”

Alongside cutting emissions in the first place, Friends of the Earth is calling for doubled tree cover to protect people from the impact of extreme weather such as heatwaves and to help absorb carbon from the atmosphere. 

Friends of the Earth wants decisive action to address the climate emergency in the first 100 days of the new Johnson administration including passing an emergency climate budget in the Autumn which must allocate billions of pounds of investment in areas like public transport, creating warm homes and planting millions of trees:

By the end of 2020 Friends of the Earth wants commitments on:

•  Transport: Invest in brilliant and cheap public transport, cycling and walking everywhere. New petrol and diesel cars shouldn’t even be for sale within the decade.

•  Power: Start aiming for 100% clean energy from the wind, sun and sea.  Electricity can’t come from dirty fuels anymore and fracking should be banned.

•  Buildings: Fund a massive insulation scheme and shift to eco-friendly heating – this will end the misery of cold, expensive-to-heat homes.

•  Agriculture and land use: Double tree cover and let wildlife thrive – our land is too precious to be given over to intensive farming.

•  Infrastructure: Start making climate change a deal-breaker in all spending decisions.  That means projects that fuel climate change, like airport expansion, can’t go ahead.

•  International justice: It’s time the UK paid its fair share to support more vulnerable countries to cut carbon pollution and deal with the impacts of climate change. 

This Author

Marianne Brooker is The Ecologist’s content editor. This article is based on press release from Friends of the Earth. 

Image: Mark Ramsay, Flickr. 

Almost £1.2 billion worth of food a year goes to waste on UK farms or ends up in uses such as feeding livestock instead of people, analysis suggests.

A study by waste and resources body WRAP found 3.6 million tonnes of vegetables, fruit, cereal crops, dairy and meat is wasted or not sold on for human consumption from farms, accounting for seven percent of total UK production.

The figures include 1.6 million tonnes of food at the point of harvest or slaughter which goes to waste, being sent of landfill, ploughed back into the ground, composted or used for energy and fertiliser in “anaerobic digestion”.

Lettuces

In addition, two million tonnes of food which had been intended for human consumption is “surplus”, produce at risk of being waste which ends up as livestock feed, redistributed to charities or is used for things such as colourants.

Food waste and surplus occurs as products are graded, packed and washed, or are rejected by customers, Wrap said.

The report found wasted food would have had a market value of around £650 million and and surplus food is estimated to be worth more than £500 million. It is hoped the report can help reduce waste.

It found sugar beet topped the list in terms of the total annual amount of waste, with 347,000 tonnes, followed by 335,000 tonnes of potatoes and 152,000 tonnes of carrots.

But other crops saw a very high proportion of their produce wasted, with almost a quarter of lettuces, 104,000 tonnes, going to waste.

Vast

Peter Maddox, director of WRAP said: “This is the most detailed study of food surplus and waste in primary production undertaken for the UK, and a key finding has been the range of waste across all food categories.

“This tells us is there is huge potential to reduce the amount of surplus and waste by promoting best practice, and that’s where our work is now focused.”

He said Wrap wanted to see increased redistribution of surplus food, as has happened in the retail sector.

Peter Andrews, head of sustainability at the British Retail Consortium, said: “Food waste is a major source of carbon emissions and we support Wrap’s efforts to mitigate it.

“The challenges involved in tackling food waste in farming are vast, but if we are to be serious about these environmental and social challenges of food production and consumption then we can leave no stone unturned.

Supply chain

“Retailers are working closely with their suppliers to minimise waste, for example by using more accurate prediction of demand, finding ways to use surplus production, and settings clear targets for future improvement.”

Jack Ward, chief executive of the British Growers Association said growers wanted to maximise sales of the produce grown on their land, because a failure to do so puts already slim margins under even greater pressure.

“As the sustainability of our food production systems comes under increasing scrutiny, reducing waste at every point in the food supply chain will be an increasing priority.

“Having new insights into the scale of food waste and under-utilised production on farm is a positive step forward, and a resource that should be of use to many growers and the wider supply chain.”

This Author

Emily Beament is the PA environment correspondent.