Environment

Lake District: Winter's snow and ice in these mountains has scoured spring's rockclimbs as sweet as a nut

Picking their way along mountain trods – like sheep returning to the fell after lambing in the pea-green fields below – climbers make for the high crags. Unlike the Herdwicks and Swales no longer in lamb, the climbers are heavy-laden, their rucksacks topped with butterfly-coiled ropes as they make for Lazarus or Nimrod, Slingsby's or Saxon, New-West or Vandal.

Winter's snow and ice has scoured spring's rockclimbs as sweet as a nut. To reach these classics, climber's tracks – blazed by Victorian climbers in nailed boots – branch from main paths like capillaries. Twisting and precipitous, they need care. The Gable Traverse from Sty Head across the Napes Ridges – "threading" Napes Needle and passing behind Sphinx Rock en route to the steep scree of Little Hell Gate – is one such arterial strand. Electrifying, it sparked the interest of climbing photographer Ken Wilson long before he produced his famous works, such as Classic Rock and Hard Rock.

The Climber's Traverse to Bowfell Buttress from the Band takes a similar line, passing under Flat Crags and Cambridge Crag; the buttress seen at last, its soaring pillar reaching for the sky. Esk Buttress has been likened to Notre Dame, resplendent above the Great Moss, and reached from the south by a trod starting below Hardknott Pass. Up soggy Mosedale it goes, past Lincove Beck and under Long and Gait Crags. The buttress finally appears as depicted in William Heaton Cooper's most magnetic painting, Scafell Pike from Upper Eskdale.

The "climber's route" to Gimmer Crag is another dedicated approach: via Middlefell Buttress above the Old Dungeon Ghyll Hotel, topping out above Curtain Wall, then traversing the craggy fellside to Valhalla. The late Country Diary writer Harry Griffin showed me a way to bypass the stony path to Dow Crag from the fell gate above Coniston. "Via this sheepfold and that quartz cairn, cruising on emerald turf," I wrote in my debut diary for the Guardian nearly 10 years ago. Would that I could remember exactly where that magic path goes, evocative at every step.

• Rural affairs

Tony Greenbank
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Forecast global temperature rise of 4C a calamity for large swaths of planet even if predicted extremes are not reached

Some of the most extreme predictions of global warming are unlikely to materialise, new scientific research has suggested, but the world is still likely to be in for a temperature rise of double that regarded as safe.

The researchers said warming was most likely to reach about 4C above pre-industrial levels if the past decade's readings were taken into account.

That would still lead to catastrophe across large swaths of the Earth, causing droughts, storms, floods and heatwaves, and drastic effects on agricultural productivity leading to secondary effects such as mass migration.

Some climate change sceptics have suggested that because the highest global average temperature yet recorded was in 1998 climate change has stalled. The new study, which is published in the journal Nature Geoscience, shows a much longer "pause" would be needed to suggest that the world was not warming rapidly.

Alexander Otto, at the University of Oxford, lead author of the research, told the Guardian that there was much that climate scientists could still not fully factor into their models. He said most of the recent warming had been absorbed by the oceans but this would change as the seas heat up. The thermal expansion of the oceans is one of the main factors behind current and projected sea level rises.

The highest global average temperature ever recorded was in 1998, under the effects of a strong El Niño, a southern Pacific weather system associated with warmer and stormy weather, which oscillates with a milder system called La Niña. Since then the trend of average global surface temperatures has shown a clear rise above the long-term averages – the 10 warmest years on record have been since 1998 – but climate sceptics have claimed that this represents a pause in warming.

Otto said that this most recent pattern could not be taken as evidence that climate change has stopped. "Given the noise in the climate and temperature system, you would need to see a much longer period of any pause in order to draw the conclusion that global warming was not occurring," he said. Such a period could be as long as 40 years of the climate record, he said.

Otto said the study found that most of the climate change models used by scientists were "pretty accurate". A comprehensive global study of climate change science is expected to be published in September by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, its first major report since 2007.

Jochem Marotzke, professor at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg and a co-author of the paper, said: "It is important not to over-interpret a single decade, given what we know, and don't know, about natural climate variability. Over the past decade the world as a whole has continued to warm but the warming is mostly in the subsurface oceans rather than at the surface."

Other researchers also warned that there was little comfort to be taken from the new estimates – greenhouse gas emissions are rising at a far higher rate than had been predicted by this stage of the 21st century and set to rise even further, so estimates for how much warming is likely will also have to be upped.

Richard Allan, reader in climate at the University of Reading, said: "This work has used observations to estimate Earth's current heating rate and demonstrate that simulations of climate change far in the future seem to be pretty accurate. However, the research also indicates that a minority of simulations may be responding more rapidly towards this overall warming than the observations indicate."

He said the effect of pollutants in the atmosphere, which reflect the sun's heat back into space, was particularly hard to measure.

He noted the inferred sensitivity of climate to a doubling of carbon dioxide concentrations based on this new study, suggesting a rise of 1.2C to 3.9C, was consistent with the range from climate simulations of 2.2C to 4.7C. He said: "With work like this our predictions become ever better."

• Climate change
• Climate change scepticism
• Climate change

Fiona Harvey
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New temperature norms under climate change will increase weather-related deaths in metropolitan areas in coming decades

New York city could experience up to 22% more deaths from extreme summertime heat in the coming decade under global warming, according to a study of the impact of climate trends.

The higher deaths will be partially offset by a reduction in deaths due to the milder winters predicted in Manhattan.

Overall, however, the net effect of the new temperature norms under climate change would be to increase weather-related deaths in New York city by up to 6.2% a year by the 2020s, according to the scientists.

The study, published in Nature Climate Change, predicted oppressive summer temperatures would exact an increasingly heavy toll on people living in metropolitan areas such as Manhattan in the coming decades.

The numbers would not be significantly offset by milder winters, the study found, and deaths due to extreme temperatures would rise more dramatically in the later decades of this century.

Without bold action to cut greenhouse gas emissions, heatwave deaths in New York city could rise by as much as 91% on 1980s levels by the 2080s, according to the study's projections. The net loss of life would be as much as 31% on 1980s levels, the study said.

"This is the first real study of the seasonal trade-off of climate change," Patrick Kinney, a professor of environmental health sciences at Columbia University and one of the authors of the study, said.

Kinney added: "What our study suggests is that the heat effects of climate change dominate the winter warming benefits that might also come: climate change will cause more deaths through heat than it will prevent during winter."

The findings, based on computer projections of future climate and their impact on deaths, provide a scaled-down version of the potential public health challenges posed by future climate change. The scientists used a set of 16 computer models to arrive at their findings.

The conclusions debunk the popular notion put forward by climate sceptics that warmer temperatures would benefit public health.

As the study notes, even under current conditions, there are more deaths due to extreme heat than to extreme cold in New York city every year.

Last year, the hottest summer since record-keeping began in the US, saw a string of days on which the temperature hit more than 37.7C (100F) in a number of US cities.

The week-long heatwave killed 82 people, according to figures compiled by the Associated Press.

In large metropolitan areas, such as New York, the impact of those temperature extremes are compounded by densely built-up areas. Cities such as Chicago, Cincinnati, Philadelphia and St Louis have also recorded sharp rises in deaths due to heart attacks and strokes during heatwaves, according to the draft of the National Climate Assessment, which was released last year.

"Urban heat islands, combined with an ageing population and increased urbanisation, are projected to increase the vulnerability of urban populations to heat-related health impacts in the future," the assessment said.

Kinney said he hoped the findings would push city planners in New York and other large urban areas to step up preparations for hotter and deadlier summers.

New York city has already begun efforts to cool the city during the summer, encouraging tree-planting programmes and setting new building standards.

Other cities also routinely set up "cooling centres", with cots and air conditioning, to allow people relief from the heat. Kinney said city officials also needed to target poor, elderly or disabled residents who are confined in hot and airless apartments during heatwaves.

"How can we reach out to people who are stuck in their apartments trying to ride out the events? We have to try to target vulnerable people," he added.

• Climate change
• Climate change
• New York
• United States
• Natural disasters and extreme weather

Suzanne Goldenberg
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Artist Susumu Nishinaga has used a scanning electron microscope to delve deep into the fabric of petal, leaves and pollen

Prof James Hansen rebukes oil firms and Canadian government over stance on exploiting fossil fuel, which he says would make climate problem unsolvable

Major international oil companies are buying off governments, according to the world's most prominent climate scientist, Prof James Hansen. During a visit to London, he accused the Canadian government of acting as the industry's tar sands salesman and "holding a club" over the UK and European nations to accept its "dirty" oil.

"Oil from tar sands makes sense only for a small number of people who are making a lot of money from that product," he said in an interview with the Guardian. "It doesn't make sense for the rest of the people on the planet. We are getting close to the dangerous level of carbon in the atmosphere and if we add on to that unconventional fossil fuels, which have a tremendous amount of carbon, then the climate problem becomes unsolvable."

Hansen met ministers in the UK government, which the Guardian previously revealed has secretly supported Canada's position at the highest level.

Canada's natural resources minister, Joe Oliver, has also visited London to campaign against EU proposals to penalise oil from Alberta's tar sands as highly polluting. "Canada can offer energy security and economic stability to the world," he said. Oliver also publicly threatened a trade war via the World Trade Organisation if the EU action went ahead: "Canada will not hesitate to defend its interests."

The lobbying for and against tar sands has intensified on both sides of the Atlantic as the EU moves forward on its proposals, which Canada fears could set a global precedent, and Barack Barack Obama considers approving the Keystone XL pipeline to transport tar sands oil from Canada to the US gulf coast refineries and ports. Canada's prime minister, Stephen Harper, was met by protesters when he visited New York last week to tell audiences that KXL "absolutely needs to go ahead".

Canada's tar sands are the third biggest oil reserve in the world, but separating the oil from the rock is energy intensive and causes three to four times more carbon emissions per barrel than conventional oil. Hansen argues that it would be "game over" for the climate if tar sands were fully exploited, given that existing conventional oil and gas is certain to be burned.

"To leave our children with a manageable situation, we need to leave the unconventional fuel in the ground," he said. Canada's ministers were "acting as salesmen for those people who will gain from the profits of that industry," he said. "But I don't think they are looking after the rights and wellbeing of the population as a whole.

"The thing we are facing overall is that the fossil fuel industry has so much money that they are buying off governments," Hansen said. "Our democracies are seriously handicapped by the money that is driving decisions in Washington and other capitals."

The EU aims to penalise oil sources with higher carbon footprints, as part of a drive to reduce the carbon emissions from transport called the fuel quality directive (FDQ). But Canada, supported by the UK, is fiercely opposed: "We are not saying they should not move to reduce emissions," said Oliver. "But the proposed implementation of the FQD is discriminatory to oil sands and not based on scientific facts." However, Europe's commissioner for climate action, Connie Hedegaard, said the FQD was "nothing more, nothing less" than accurate labelling and putting a fair price on pollution.

Hansen, who informed the US Congress of the danger of global warming in 1988, has caused controversy before by saying the "CEOs of fossil fuel companies should be tried for high crimes against humanity" and calling coal-fired power plants "factories of death". In April, he stepped down from his Nasa position after 46 years, in order to spend more time communicating the risks of climate change and to work on legal challenges to governments.

Hansen has started a science programme at Columbia University, the first task of which is to produce a report to support suits filed again the US federal government and several state governments. It is being pursued by the Our Children's Trust charity and is based on a trust principle recognised in US law.

"We maintain that the atmosphere and climate are held in trust by the present generations for the future generations and we do not have the right to destroy that asset," Hansen said. "Therefore the courts should require the government to give a plan as to how they are going to ensure that we still have that asset to pass on to the next generation."

• Oil sands
• Energy
• Fossil fuels
• James Hansen
• Climate change
• Climate change
• Canada
• European Union
• Europe

Damian Carrington
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It is up to consumers and voters to change the lousy behaviour of big banks, energy giants and internet multinationals. They will not change by themselves

Last week, I was waiting in the queue at the butcher while an elderly lady was being served. Clearly, she was not that well-off and chose the cheapest cuts of meat. When she was done, the butcher asked the assistant serving her how much the bill came to. Told that it was £11, he whispered: "Make it £8."

It was a small example of generosity made all the better by the butcher taking care that his customer was unaware of what he was doing. It was also a far cry from the world of big business in a week that saw dawn raids on Shell and BP for alleged price-fixing and Google accused by the Labour MP Margaret Hodge of doing evil.

Stung by the attack from the chairwoman of the Commons public accounts committee, Eric Schmidt, the executive chairman of Google, mounted a defence in the Observer. Tax is a mightily complex matter for multinational companies, he said. The global system could do with reform. It was up to politicians to set the rules, but they had to recognise the dangers if profit became a dirty word.

All credit to Hodge for flushing Schmidt out. He likes to portray himself as the new sort of boss of a new sort of company, the ones that boast of their non-hierarchical structures, their dress-down policies and their chill-out zones. But the row about tax has shown that the people running these new-wave behemoths are not hippy capitalists, they are robber barons in chinos.

Nor should we expect otherwise. The dominant form of corporate organisation in the west is the joint stock company, the purpose of which is to deliver profits for its shareholders. Almost all these companies pay lip-service to corporate social responsibility. The companies selling booze say they are firmly committed to tackling problem drinking. The betting shop chains say they want to see responsible gambling. The fast food companies and the soft drinks industry sponsor sporting events in the hope that nobody notices how they are contributing to obesity. But they are in business to maximise profits for their shareholders. Period.

The intellectual justification for the profit-maximising company can be traced all the way back to Adam Smith, who famously said in the Wealth of Nations: "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the baker or the brewer that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest." The pursuit of profit, in other words, creates wealth from which we all benefit.

The Theory of Moral Sentiments, an earlier work by Smith, contained a rather different message, namely that there are good human qualities such as generosity and the desire to be seen worthy of the approval of others. Many problems, Smith thought, would be solved if only people could hold up a mirror and see themselves "in the light in which others see us".

Corporate social responsibility is supposed to address this point. Businesses like to be held in high esteem by their customers, but many of them have missed the crucial part of Smith's message: curbing the instinct to behave badly was not seen as being driven by commercial ends but by natural instincts. The real world is somewhat different. More than 30 clothing retailers have signed the Bangladesh Safety Accord for regular independent safety inspections of garment factories, but only after the deaths of 1,127 workers in the collapse of the Rana Plaza works exposed them to reputational risk.

Smith, at a guess, would have been horrified – if not entirely surprised – to find that the European commission had launched dawn raids on Shell and BP amid allegations of price-fixing; that the European head of Google was being accused of doing evil by Hodge; and that Britain's big banks had been fingered for a string of offences from the mis-selling of protection payment insurance to money laundering.

Nor would Smith have expected Google, Amazon or Starbucks to voluntarily pay more tax than they were legally obliged to for the simple reason that he distrusted enterprises which wielded monopoly or oligopoly power. His objection to a company such as Amazon would have been that it is using its market power to eliminate competition and would be in a position, once all the other booksellers had been driven out of business, to charge higher prices.

The fact is, of course, that the world has moved on since Smith wrote the Wealth of Nations. There are examples of businesses that operate "in the light in which others see us", but as a general rule of thumb they tend to be small, local, non-transnational, non-PLC and open to the full blast of competition.

But perfect competition does not exist. The corporate world is not dominated by small shopkeepers who worry what their customers might think about them, but by large corporations generating revenues that get channelled upwards to executives and shareholders.

Companies will only change for one of three reasons: they are forced to do so legally; they are forced to do so by their customers; or because they spontaneously decide that they want to operate in accord with Smith's moral sentiments.

Changes to the international tax system will be on the agenda when the G8 meets in Northern Ireland for its annual summit next month, and there has probably never been a better time to crack down on tax havens, aggressive tax planning and transfer-pricing schemes. In part this is because of the egregious nature of the corporate scandals and in part because governments are badly in need of tax receipts in a time of weak growth. Tax threatens to become to the 2010s what debt relief was to the 1990s: the focus of a global campaign for reform.

In the end, though, the success of any campaign will depend on how the public behaves. If we don't like the current state of affairs, we can do one of two things. We can put pressure on governments to break up monopolies and inject more competition. We can call for a new business model, based on "for benefit" organisations, to challenge the domination of the joint stock company. We can force them to introduce sales taxes to avoid profits migrating offshore. Alternatively, we can vote with our feet, and stop patronising the companies that exploit loopholes in the tax system, even though that might mean higher prices and less choice. If we are not prepared to do one of these two things, we will have to lump it.

After the events of the past few years, it would be naive to expect the initiative to come from the boardroom. Corporate social responsibility has been a smokescreen behind which companies can screw their customers while pretending they are putting something back. The activities of the banks and the energy companies illustrate the point. Capitalism is not about being cuddly or sponsoring exhibitions at the Tate Modern; it is about making profits, the higher the better.

• Corporate governance
• Corporate social responsibility
• Tax
• Tax and spending
• Tax avoidance
• Energy industry
• Oil
• Royal Dutch Shell
• Oil and gas companies
• BP
• Amazon.com
• Internet
• E-commerce
• Google
• Eric Schmidt
• Margaret Hodge
• Economic policy
• Economics

Larry Elliott
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UK growers adopt specialist computer forecasting system to help improve yields of crops whatever the weather

As Britain steels itself for the prospect of yet another washout summer, strawberry growers are finding themselves forced to come up with increasingly sophisticated ways of assessing the threat posed to their livelihoods by inclement weather.

For fruit growers, predicting the weather is vital. It causes fruit yields to vary by as much as 70%, making for an erratic growing season if poor conditions are not anticipated.

The last few years has seen a glut of strawberries arrive during rainy periods, when demand was limited. Conversely, this has meant a shortage of the fruit in some parts of the country at peak times – for example outside London when Wimbledon fortnight started last year.

But as the year's first crop of British field-grown strawberries goes on sale this weekend, growers have a new hi-tech weapon in their armoury. The biggest growers are using a state-of-the-art forecasting system that allows them to predict the yields in individual fields.

The specialist technology compares historical yield curves, the recorded effect weather has on the crop and the planting date of the strawberries in their respective locations. The information is then fed into a computer along with long-term weather forecasts, specific growing data for some of the 600 varieties of strawberry produced in the UK, and growth charts for each field.

The new system is helping the UK's biggest growers, who are responsible for producing around 20,000 tonnes of strawberries – a third of the annual UK crop. It involves field visits up to three times a week, when light levels and plant growth are recorded. The collated information has helped growers accurately determine when to plant their crops to ensure yields mature throughout the season, "smoothing out" the supply of strawberries to the supermarkets.

Although the vast majority of British strawberries are grown under polytunnels, their yields are heavily influenced by dank, cold conditions.

"For the last couple of years a glut of strawberries arrived during a rainy spell when demand wasn't so high," said Paul Jones, a strawberry buyer for Tesco.

"As a result we got together with some of the UK's biggest strawberry growers and suppliers to discuss bringing in technology that could help them plan their planting programmes more accurately. Now, with the aid of computer technology and leading weather prediction data, we will be able to process and analyse forecasted strawberry volumes down to individual field level."

The hi-tech approach is a new way of harvesting one of the most venerated, historic fruits. In medieval times strawberries were regarded as an aphrodisiac and a soup made of strawberries, borage and soured cream was served to newlyweds at their wedding breakfast.

An initial trial of the new system involving a small number of growers last year was found to be around 95% accurate, enough to convince large-scale producers of the need to use the new technology. Growers hope it will spell an end to the problems they experienced last season when a very wet spring and poor light levels were followed by the wettest summer for more than a century.

Securing a steady supply is likely to pay dividends for retailers. Demand for strawberries – which were first cultivated by the Romans in 200 BC – continues to increase every year, according to industry figures. The industry predicts an 8% rise in tonnage this summer compared with 2012 and estimates that between 60,000 and 65,000 tonnes will be produced by British growers.

But the prospect of a glorious summer in which to enjoy strawberries looks a forlorn hope. Early indications, such as last week's snow flutters in Shropshire and Devon, suggest that we may be in for a similar summer to last year.

• Farming
• Food & drink

Jamie Doward
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Rana Plaza shows just how much traceable supply chains matter. We need to care about the people making our clothes

"What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing." Oscar Wilde's famous quote keeps coming back to me at the moment. I have thought of it over and over in the wake of the Rana Plaza factory collapse in Bangladesh. More than 1,120 bodies were removed from the rubble of the eight-storey complex. For some, the Rana Plaza tragedy is a matter of criminality, and indeed there have been multiple arrests, including engineers who are alleged to have illegally added several shoddily constructed floors to the building, and the factory owner who is said to have ordered employees to work the morning of the collapse, after safety concerns had been raised.

They may be directly culpable, but it is disingenuous to claim we are not connected to this tragedy. Government officials blamed the relentless thrum of industrial machinery for the building's collapse. For whom were the needles whirring if not us? Can you be sure nothing you own was sewn by one of the workers who went into the factory that morning and never came home? Me neither.

This week's column, therefore, is a plea to fashion producers for traceability of their supply chain, and a mention for brands and services which supply those things to consumers. Frustratingly, at the top end of the market that kind of accountability is easier to come by, but there's no reason the high street should be exempt from offering similar guarantees. As Lucy Siegle noted in this newspaper, big brands distancing themselves from the factories in which their goods are produced is part of their business model. It helps safeguard their profit margin. If consumers demand they become accountable in great enough numbers, they will.

The other half of the Wildean price-value aphorism is less frequently quoted, but worth bearing in mind: "and a sentimentalist… is a man who sees an absurd value in everything, and doesn't know the market price of any single thing".

Often the argument against buying fair trade (or introducing any kind of guarantees about the working conditions a garment was made under) is one of price. It may seem pompous to ask anybody to pay more than they might for a T-shirt, especially in times of financial hardship. But as garment workers' wages make up such a tiny fraction of the cost price of an item (around 1-3%), a small increase in price might improve their circumstances greatly.

At the moment, though, if you want to be sure the workers who made your clothes didn't suffer doing it, investing in fair trade is the only option. It may cost more, but the price of a garment isn't just the one on the tag – there is more than one kind of cost. How cheap is anything if someone dies to keep the price down?

Follow Lauren on Twitter @LaurenLaverne

• Fashion industry
• Ethical and green living

Lauren Laverne
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Homeowners wishing to sell may find buyers are not prepared to take over green deal loan attached to the property's energy bill

Homeowners taking out a loan under the government's green deal energy efficiency scheme could find themselves having to pay off the debt before they can sell their property, according to consumer body Which?

Since January, householders have been able to sign up to the green deal, which allows them to pay for energy efficiency improvements in their home with no, or little, upfront cost; instead, these are funded by a loan repaid through their electricity bill.

Crucially, the "golden rule" of green deal is that you should not pay back more in loan repayments than you are saving on your energy bill – but this can mean that, depending on the cost of the improvement, you could be making loan repayments for as long as 25 years. The loan is attached to the property's electricity bill until it is paid off, so if the person who has set up the deal moves house, the bill falls to the new owner.

Research by Which? shows that of the 2,070 people it surveyed in April 2013, a fifth (21%) would reconsider buying a home if it had a green deal loan attached to it. Almost half of prospective buyers (46%) would want a green deal loan paid off before they would purchase the property.

Which? executive director Richard Lloyd said: "With rising energy prices still one of the top consumer worries, measures that help people make their homes more energy efficient are vital to help save money on bills.

"The green deal might work for some people but, as with any financial product, whether it's a good deal for you will depend upon your personal and financial circumstances."

In January, the Observer warned about the possible implications of taking out a loan that comes attached to a property — even if the purpose of the loan is to save homeowners money on their bills.

A mortgage industry source told The Observer at the time: "We have concerns that a potential buyer looking at a property may not value the improvements carried out under green deal and may not want to pay for them. Buyers may also consider that the benefits of any home improvements have already been factored into the sale price, and that the loan repayments on their electricity bill are therefore an extra cost they don't want to pay."

There are also reports of rogue traders attempting to use the green deal to defraud householders. Caerphilly Trading Standards has recently received 17 complaints of people knocking on doors claiming that homeowners were entitled to around £10,000 of funding for free home improvements. The fraudsters then asked for an "administration fee" to undertake various tasks on behalf of the householder. But Tim Keohane, senior trading standards officer in Caerphilly, said that none of the people under investigation was registered under the scheme.

The Building & Engineering Services Association, which operates the consumer advice service the Heating Helpline, wants the government to do more to publicise the fact that only authorised installers will be able to identify themselves as "green deal installers" and use the green deal quality mark.

• Energy bills
• Property
• Borrowing & debt
• Household bills
• Consumer affairs
• Green deal
• Energy
• Energy efficiency

Lisa Bachelor
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The collapse of a factory in Bangladesh has put sustainability in the fashion industry back on the agenda. Here are the best news stories and teaching resources to deal with the issues in class

The deaths of more than 1,100 garment workers when the Rana Plaza building in Bangladesh collapsed last month, as well as those at a Cambodian shoe factory on Thursday, have forced consumers and retailers to re-examine the impact and ethics of fast fashion.

Here we round up the best news stories, multimedia, teaching resources and websites to help you study the working conditions of garment workers and the sustainability of the fashion industry in the citizenship and geography classroom, and beyond.

From the Guardian

Cambodia shoe factory collapse kills workers
On Thursday 16 May a ceiling came down at Wing Star Shoes plant in Cambodia, killing at least two people. The latest in a long line of industrial accidents killing workers in the fashion industry making garments for the west.

Fashion chains sign to help finance safety in Bangladesh factories
Will the collapse of the Rana Plaza building lead to a change in practice? Some of the world's biggest fashion chains, including H&M, Zara, C&A, Tesco and Primark, have signed up to a legally-binding agreement to help finance fire safety and building improvements in the factories they use in Bangladesh. The government in Dhaka has also announced plans to raise the the minimum wage for garment workers.

Eight top fashion retailers fail to sign Bangladesh safety accord
A number of retailers failed to put their names to a Bangladesh safety pact, including Marks & Spencer, Sainsbury's and New Look.

Bangladesh building collapse: woman rescued after 17 days speaks of ordeal - video
A woman found alive in the rubble of Dhaka's Rana Plaza after 17 days tells how she got rescuers' attention with a stick as she heard voices above her.

Bangladesh building collapse – pictures
Devastating photographs of the Rana Plaza collapse which killed more than 1,100 people in April 2013.

Fashion doesn't give a damn about garment workers
Thought-provoking comment piece by Lucy Siegle – author of To Die For: Is Fashion Wearing Out the World – which gives an insight into the fashion industry and how the world's 40 million garment workers work to try and complete near-impossible orders.

Was your T-shirt made in the Dhaka garment factory? You have no idea
Applying any ethical criteria is challenging when it comes to fashion – so isn't it time we had Fairtrade labelling for clothes?

Death in Bangladesh is too high a price for quick-fix fashion
Blog by 18 year-old fashion lover on how she has stopped buying cheap clothes. She points out teenagers' spending power is worth £7bn a year – imagine if that were channelled into buying fewer well-made clothes produced under fair wages.

Time for an international minimum wage
Bangladeshi writer Muhammad Yunus' insightful comment piece is great for sixth formers who want to delve deeper into the how foreign buyers can unite to lift workers out of 'slave labour'.

On the Guardian Teacher Network

Desperate poverty behind the tragedy of Dhaka – The Day
An article from schools news service The Day on the terrible race to save victims in the worst recorded industrial accident in Bangladesh. The activity that goes with the article asks: are Western companies to blame?

Ethical clothing lesson
Excellent lesson written by citizenship and English teacher Charlotte Rashford which introduces the issues of sweatshop clothing factories. Also see the associated starter activity and group work plan.

Guide to becoming a Fairtrade school
Step by step guide to becoming a Fairtrade school including how to set up a steering group and adopt a Fairtrade policy.

Send my Friend to School PowerPoint
Many garment workers across the world are school-aged. This PowerPoint introduces the 2013 Send My Friend to School activities to primary school kids, including facts and figures and real life stories. Also find a PowerPoint for secondary.

The best of the web

Love fashion hate sweatshops
Some really interesting material here from the War on Want campaign for a fashion industry that respects workers' rights.

Blood, sweat and t-shirts
Six young fashion British lovers swap shopping for the factories and back streets of India, where they go to work making clothes and living with the workers - the result is a hard-hitting expose of the garment industry and the clips of each episode here are just tailor made to play in lessons.

Labour behind the label
A campaign that works to improve conditions and empower workers in the global garment industry. It's great site to explore, packed with advice, resources and action that can be taken.

In praise of sweatshops
It can be hard to find the pro-sweatshops view if your school debate club has to argue it. The Spectator kindly provides one in this blog by Alex Massie.

Anti-slavery campaign
Interesting info and action from this organisation which promotes the eradication of slavery and slavery-like practices, which include garment workers paid a pittance working in dreadful conditions.

Facts and figures on child labour by UNICEF
Many garment workers across the globe are children. Get the stats here.

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• Schools
• Teaching
• Fashion industry
• Retail industry
• Ethical and green living
• Bangladesh

Emily Drabble
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The presence of isolated bug Meenoplus Roddenberryi on Gran Canaria suggests important things about the evolution of cave-dwelling species

Things are looking up for bugs underground. Among the 132 cave-dwelling invertebrate species of the Canary Islands are about 15 species of Hemiptera or true bugs. Most of these troglobites are from younger, more recently volcanically active, islands where lava tubes are abundant. La Palma and El Hierro, for example, are less than two and one million years old, respectively, and until recently home to most of the documented cave fauna.

Most volcanic activity on Gran Canaria ceased 1.6m years ago. As a result, this 14m-year-old island has few lava tubes, leading biospelunkers to assume that the cavernicolous fauna would be sparse. Localised activity to the north and east has produced some volcanic landscapes, but the south-western half of the island has few lava tubes or cinder cones and virtually no troglobites.

Before the year 2000, Gran Canaria cave fauna consisted of one spider and one cockroach. Since then, explorations of lava tubes and old artificial caves have revealed a much richerfauna than was suspected, almost the equal to that of younger islands. Discoveries have included millipedes, pseudoscorpions, spiders, silverfish and beetles, many of which are yet to be named. Most are found in shallow mesocavernous habitats, the so-called milieu souterrain superficiel. Caves are voids large enough for a human to enter. Mesocaverns are smaller than caves, but larger than mere fractures in rock.

Dr Hannelore Hoch of the Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin, with Dr Manuel Naranjo of the Sociedad Entomológica Canaria Melansis and Dr Pedro Oromí of the Universidad de La Laguna, recently discovered a new species of cavernicolous true bug in a 30 metre-long water mine on Gran Canaria near Tenteniguada, at about 1,100 metres above sea level. The bug was found in the deepest part of the mine, formed in colluvial deposits of basalt, where seasonal variations are slight; temperature remains 13-17C and the relative humidity 85-94%. The presumed food source for the bugs are roots of a number of trees and shrubs penetrating the mine, including some combination of sweet chestnut (Castanea sativa), yellow broom (Teline microphylla), blue Gran Canarian tajinaste (Echium callythirsum), and escobon (Chamaecytisus proliferus).

Meenoplus roddenberryi is named after Gene Roddenberry, creator of Star Trek that has spawned an industry of sequels, movies, and now scientific names. The mission statement that began episodes of the original series included the words "… to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life… to boldly go where no man has gone before". Hoch et al suggest this applies as much to biospeleology as to space exploration.

M roddenberryi is a textbook example of a relict since not a single epigean member of the family exists in the Canaries, but must have at one time. Those remaining reflect three independent cavern colonisations by at least two different extinct ancestral species: M claustrophilus on La Palma, M cancavus and M charon on El Hierro, and M roddenberryi on Gran Canaria. It is equally curious that in spite of suitable habitats and the presence of other troglobitic bugs, no meenoplids are known on Tenerife. Nor is M roddenberryi a close relative of known species from Africa or Cape Verde, leaving its ancestral origins a mystery for now.

Because larvae of the family live in or on the soil the transition to hypogean life is easily envisioned. Still, there are degrees of morphological adaptation to cave life, and M roddenberryi is a more extreme example than its relatives on younger islands. The opposite has been noted among bugs in Hawaii with the most extreme forms on younger islands. This suggests that degree of adaptation correlates with physical parameters, rather than a gradual process. The scarcity of cavernicolous planthoppers on older islands had been explained by the elimination of mesocaverns by erosion and soil formation, but M roddenberryi challenges that explanation and suggests that landslides and rock avalanches create new habitats.

• Insects
• Zoology
• Animals
• Wildlife
• Star Trek

Quentin Wheeler
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The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says the tiny town of Newtok, Alaska, could be completely underwater by 2017. Its 350 residents must relocate or stay to face the floods, but a move is easier said than done.

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A bear weighing 136kg (300lb) is discovered up a tree in a suburban garden in Tampa Bay, Florida, on Friday

Afghanistan is believed to be home to world-class mineral deposits, valued at up to $3 trillion and offering hope for the country's economic future. But in the current environment of uncertainty, investors are nervous and it could be many years before Afghanistan strikes pay dirt.

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Atmospheric scientist Ira Leifer installed special air sensors on a camper, then drove from Florida to California, measuring methane levels all along the way. More than 6,000 readings later, he found some noticeable spikes, especially around petrochemical plants and urban areas like Los Angeles.

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Esther and Verena Roth, founders of Plümo, tell us what's making stylish online shoppers click this summer

For the Roth sisters, an open-minded approach to is key. Esther is the business brain behind Plümo, the brand she set up 15 years ago and where she was joined seven years later by her younger sister, Verena, who focuses on the creative side. Both have what Esther calls "a magpie eye – we love fairs and car-boot sales". It's a trait that's evident on the site, which sells a mix of independent designers, fair trade goods and artisan fashion.

There is a look, but it isn't about trends – it's about layering and easy-to-wear shapes. "I'm not a size 10, I'm a 14, and I want beautiful clothes that will last more than a season," Esther says. Plümo's hot item right now bears out this philosophy: a £95 "Sicilian" shirt dress is selling out "because of the oversized shape. It looks great with flat shoes, and you can easily wear it to the office or dress it up on holiday."

The Plümo woman has changed her habits in the recession. "Customers are happy to invest in something expensive, so long as it lasts more than a season." Her hot picks? The Carla bag, and a £300-plus  lace shrug ("People buy it for weddings to add zing to a more basic outfit").

Verena recommends 60s-inspired knits from Ganni, though she has a pressing sartorial issue to deal with: she's six months pregnant. How's her wardrobe coping? "I'm going for summer leggings with long tunics or boxy Baum und Pferdgarten T-shirts, because they're so easy to wear."

What we like

• Fashion industry
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• Dresses
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Imogen Fox
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Fashion writer Hadley Freeman answers eight-year-old Harriet's question

Clothes have been around for a very long time. Even in The Flintstones, which is set a very, very, very long time ago, Wilma Flintstone and Betty Rubble wear some absolutely darling dresses, hair accessories and even the occasional swimsuit.

No one knows who was the first person to invent clothing, but at some point in the very distant past, your ancestors and mine decided to put on some animal skins to keep themselves warm. But more important than learning who invented clothes is figuring out what new thing are you going to do with clothes. Perhaps you will wear a brightly patterned, long-sleeved shirt under a neon floral dress? Maybe you will wear ballet slippers with dungarees? Or you could wear a Snow White costume with a pair of wellingtons. Clothes have been around a long time, but there is so much more to do with them. I'm more interested in what you will do with your dress, Harriet, than who invented it.

• Be Awesome, by Hadley Freeman, is published by Fourth Estate.

If you're 10 or under and have a question that needs answering, email ask.a.grownup@guardian.co.uk and we'll find an expert to look into it for you.

• Animals
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Guardian readersHadley FreemanMarian Keyes
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The planned high-speed rail link between London and Birmingham (HS2 rail project has £3.3bn funding shortfall, warns spending watchdog, 16 May) is the land-bound equivalent of Concorde; both scams for spending billions of pounds of citizens' hard-earned wealth in order to benefit a tiny minority of very rich businessmen and multinational corporations so they can reach their destination a few minutes before they otherwise would.

This reckless expenditure of £32bn is as unjustifiable, at a time when citizens are making painful sacrifices, as the £100bn being spent rebuilding our weapons of mass destruction. The job-creating capacity of this project should be compared with the number of jobs that would be created by the government spending £32bn in the sustainable energy industry.
Jim McCluskey
Twickenham, Middlesex

• Simon Jenkins's attack on HS2 (17 May) helps explain why most environmental groups have been reluctant to condemn the project out of hand. Jenkins argues that new roads such as a Nottingham-Derby-Stoke motorway would be preferable, but a major road-building programme would be environmentally disastrous.

Much better an investment in high-speed rail – but only if it is done well. HS2 has the potential to destroy a swath of precious, tranquil countryside. So we need to be prepared to shift the route, compromise on top speed and invest properly in tunnelling and other mitigation, so that the line can fit in better with the contours of the landscape. If that means a more expensive HS2, so be it.

Above all, the argument for HS2 is about rail capacity. If it is to be justified it must be part of a larger shift of passenger and freight travel from road and air to rail, not least a reversal of Beeching's cuts to rural lines.
Shaun Spiers
Campaign to Protect Rural England

• I'm glad I am not the only one disappointed with the transport select committee's recommendations for expanded airport capacity (Letters, 16 May). However, the members seem to have their blinkers on. The most significant, indeed, terrifying factor to guide their recommendations should be that atmospheric CO2 levels have just passed the 400ppm mark. With the new transport infrastructure and airport capacity they wish for, they will ensure that we continue on our way to 500ppm and beyond. We are poisoning the life systems of the planet and all, they suggest, in the name of competition. It seems we are actually lemmings being led by donkeys.
Dr Colin Bannon
Crapstone, Devon

• HS2
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Sandy, Bedfordshire: An adult had crawled from the wreckage of its former self, and was sitting there waiting to dry then fly

Three damselflies rose as one from the pond on their maiden flights, wings flickering, twirling and glistening with amber transparency. They did not make it beyond the garden fence. Their second birth into a world of wind and air announced, they veered off to land. One dropped on to a fading cowslip, the flower head giving not so much as a nod to its weightless burden. The other two fluttered into bushes, folded their wings over their backs and were hidden again.

It felt like the marker of a new season – not the coming of spring but a bridge into summer by an insect whose adult knows nothing of the colder months. I poked my head into the winter jasmine and peered at a creature that was a large red damselfly in name only. The jointed segments of its abdomen were still some hours away from the flush of being suffused with blood. They resembled part-bleached knuckle bones of a human skeleton. Between the damselfly's enormous, near-hemispherical eyes was a pin-sized head. What could the tiny brain within comprehend of its host's transformed shape, way of hunting, eating, moving, even breathing in this other world? The damselfly raised one leg as if contemplating "the new me", then lowered it again.

I crouched down at the pond. A whole platoon of nymphs had shinned part-way up spearwort stems, where their feet gripped on still in a final embrace. Their heads looked up to the sky and their abdomens were tipped with leaf-like paddles. But these were empty husks that showed their exit wounds – gaping splits in their thoraxes and a stringy mass of redundant breathing tubes on their backs. Further up one stem was an adult that had crawled from the wreckage of its former self, and was sitting there waiting to dry then fly. It had a tube looped over its thorax. This was an odd detail that I had never seen before, perhaps an umbilical cord of sorts, about to drop off. And here was a hiatus: a moment of stillness before its brief life on the wing would begin.

• Rural affairs
• Insects
• Wildlife
• Animals

Derek Niemann
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Last month's factory collapse in Bangladesh revealed horrible truths about the clothes industry. There has never been a better time to choose your shopping carefully

On 24 April when the Rana Plaza factory complex on the outskirts of Dhaka fell down like a house of cards killing 1,127 workers, the fashion myth that we can have whatever we want, at speed, in bulk and at unprecedentedly "affordable" prices collapsed too.

In case you have been on the moon, it's worth a recap on the consumer style phenomenon known as fast fashion. A business model that threw out the fashion industry bible, it turned six-month lead times into days and got us hooked on 30-50 seasons a year (the quaint autumn/winter and spring/summer showings of fashion weeks are now as culturally relevant as Gregorian plainsong). Allied to globalisation and free-market economics, fast fashion brands and retailers have outsourced production to low-waged economies, predominantly in Asia.

Fast fashion created its own set of moguls from Sir Philip Green of Arcadia to Amancio Ortega of Inditex and it has set a tone. Reformers (and there are thousands of us campaigning for the fashion industry we love to clean up its act) have consistently pointed out the flaws in this business model.

That the bulk of the risk has been shouldered by some of the lowest paid workers in the world has been made plain in the past three weeks. What happened in Dhaka last month was shocking, but also predictable. For the past decade, the world's most famous brands have been flirting with disaster. Every month brings a fresh tragedy to the world's garment districts, usually through a factory fire or collapse. As I contacted brands for this piece, a factory collapsed in Cambodia.

But this week campaigners for garment workers' rights have brokered a significant breakthrough. At the time of going to press 31, brands had signed the Bangladesh Safety Accord. The accord will sound dry to many fashion lovers. It is a contract between brands, retailers and trade unions in Bangladesh. It is a legally binding, five‑year pact that makes independent safety inspections of 1,000 factories and public reporting on them mandatory. It is also the first-ever multibuyer collective agreement. This is a historic moment for the campaign to clean up fashion.

But what should our next move be as consumers? In my dreams we all turn to those ethical brands that prioritise ethics and sustainability. But the reality of the postbag (even at the Guardian) is rather different. In the wake of this crisis, most concerned readers want to know: which are the ethical shops on the high street? Sam Maher, of Labour Behind the Label, says "Why not reward those companies for making a step? Choose the brand that's signed over the one that has not."

Every brand can direct you to pages of sustainability reports of varying sophistication and glossiness. One expert tells me that you need a degree in ethical sourcing to make informed decisions, and he's not exaggerating by much. Since most of us don't have these credentials, but want to do what we can, I have sought the views of NGOs and industry analysts and, with their input, created the short reports below.

These take their cue from recent actions and responses, and a good report is not a clean bill of health. Nor is it a general sustainability ranking: no marks for biodegradable bags, or displacing landfill waste through a textile recycling scheme. Really what we want to know, right now, is what will prevent another disaster such as Rana Plaza.

So we're looking for vital signs. These include a promise to sign the new Bangladesh fire and safety agreement, and evidence of willingness to work towards a living wage in countries where legal minimum wages are set too low to ensure a decent standard of living. Also, brands that have buying offices and people on the ground are likely to be more committed. When things go wrong, NGOs look for fast response times in order to help the victims.

In addition, NGOs agree that the right to join a union and collective bargaining make a real difference. Finally, short-term contracts and orders cause a lack of stability, and leave factory owners without an incentive to reform the working environment.

This list is not exhaustive. Some smaller brands I approached were not able to answer my questions. But below, I offer you my estimation of some of the key players.

H&M

Praise has been heaped on H&M for being the first to sign the legally binding Bangladesh Safety Accord. Once H&M led the way as the biggest player in Bangladesh, it became obvious other major brands would follow. H&M appears to have shown willingness to be more transparent and released a partial list of its suppliers. Campaigners want to see equally decisive action on paying a living wage to workers.

Topshop/Arcadia

It is widely acknowledged that Topshop has many good people with an appetite for ethical change; there have been some interesting ethical design collections from Topshop.

However, the analysts I spoke to couldn't separate Topshop from parent company Arcadia. Arcadia had not signed the Bangladesh accord at the time of going to press, and never joined the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI) – considered the first step to cleaning up the supply chain.

Zara/Inditex

Insiders suggest Inditex is a mixed bag. It scores strongly for having compensated the victims of the Spectrum factory collapse in Bangladesh in 2005, and is known for having good relationships with trade unions, particularly in Europe. However, it isn't clear what proportion of its clothes are manufactured in Europe. Reformers argue that Inditex has a charge to answer in that it was one of the key drivers of the new, faster fashion and the short-termism that is often bad news for workers.

M&S

Has a plan ("Plan A" in fact) and is praised by reformers for pushing forward without waiting for crises. It is known for stable, long-term relationships with supplier factories.

M&S is the only major retailer to have committed to ensuring its suppliers are able to pay workers a living wage in the least-developed countries, starting with Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka by 2015. But campaigners said they don't yet know what M&S considers a living wage to be. They also want to see less emphasis on making garment workers more productive in return for better wages, and more emphasis just on better wages. M&S has signed the Bangladesh accord.

Gap

If we had undertaken this exercise a few years ago, Gap would have been top of the class. After being linked to a number of sourcing scandals, including so-called sweatshop production, Gap became something of an ethical trailblazer.

Campaigners complain Gap has run out of steam and its recent work on unravelling the supply chain is lacklustre.

It now attracts criticism for an over-reliance on its own audits and setting too much store by management systems. Gap has not signed the Bangladesh accord but has committed to new safety protocols of its own.

George at Asda (Walmart)

Walmart, owner of Asda, has worked on raising wages for garment workers, particularly after being singled out by campaign groups such as War on Want. This work tended to focus on increasing productivity.

Campaigners suggest Walmart is ideologically opposed to unions. Walmart has not signed the Bangladesh agreement, but will conduct its own inspections of suppliers.

Primark

Its super-cheap prices and big-volume orders mean Primark is blamed for making fashion disposable and everything else. It was the first brand to step forward and acknowledge production in Rana Plaza. The company is to be praised for getting a team out to Dhaka fast, coming up with a credible compensation scheme, and working with unions and agencies to provide food aid.

But there is little argument that Primark has many questions to answer and came late to the discussion on cleaning up fashion. But it has worked consistently with the ETI and was the first British brand to sign up to the new accord.

Mango

Another Spanish powerhouse of fast fashion, Mango had also placed orders with the Rana Plaza factory. Mango said these were samples, but must still take responsibility. Mango redeems some points, as it has signed the accord.

• Lucy Siegle's To Die For: Is Fashion Wearing Out the World? is published by Fourth Estate. Buy it for £10.39 at guardianbookshop.co.uk

I was in the Rana Plaza garment factory when it collapsed

My name is Nazma Akhtar. I'm 23. When I was 19 I left my village and made my way to Dhaka to work in a garment factory.

I came to Dhaka with my parents and two younger sisters. We had to leave because the river Dhaleshwari took most of our rice fields and my father couldn't grow enough rice to get us through the year.

I started work at the Ananta fashions garment factory in Savar about 15 miles north of Dhaka. My starting pay was 2,500 taka (£ 20). My father worked as a night guard at another factory. Together we rented a small, two-room house in Savar bazaar, down the road from the factory.

I had to work more than 10 hours a day, six days a week. Sometimes, we had to work on our days off, if there was an important shipment to be made.

I was new and it took me a while to get to know how the circular knitting machines worked. The supervisors drove us hard. We were given targets for the day and if we hadn't completed our quota, we would not be allowed to rise from our benches.

There was a line supervisor named Samad who used to abuse me when I made a mistake. He threatened to dock pay if I missed a stitch. Once I had diarrhoea and had to go to the toilet several times. He threatened to slap me.

In December 2012, I joined the Phantom Tac garment factory on the fourth floor of the Rana Plaza building in Savar. There my wages improved. I was good at my job, and nimble with my fingers and feet. I worked long hours, but enjoyed the company of all the other girls who worked at the factory. We were like sisters.

I always liked the look and smell of finished clothes. I didn't know which companies we were producing for, but I knew the clothes I sewed would be sold in fancy shops in Europe and America.

On 23 April, we were working as usual when the factory manager asked us to come out. He said an engineer would inspect the building and we were being sent home. We didn't know at the time that a crack had developed in the wall of the building. But when I went to work the next morning, everyone was talking about it.

I went to our floor supervisor and asked him for a day off, but he refused and started yelling at me. We had to keep working, he told me. If we missed our deadline, the buyer would cancel the order and we would have to go hungry, he said. Then, Sohel Rana, the owner of the building turned up. Rana's men shouted that all the workers should go inside and start working. Otherwise, we would be beaten with sticks, they said.

We went inside and sat down at our benches. The whole floor was silent. We were filled with a strange fear.

I sewed about five T-shirts, then the power went out. I heard the generators start up with a roar and suddenly the whole building started to shake. Plaster  fell from the ceiling. People started screaming.

We ran for the exit. But before I could reach the stairs, the floor collapsed under me. I fell and fell. I lost consciousness.

When I came to, I was in hospital. I heard that fire service rescue workers had pulled me out after eight hours. My right leg is broken.

Many of my friends and co-workers are dead.

• Nazma Akhtar was interviewed by Syed Zain Al-Mahmood

• Ethical business
• Ethical and green living
• Fair trade
• Bangladesh

Lucy Siegle
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