Environment

Patrick Barkham heads to the north-east of England to visit the Farne Islands, where the National Trust is embarking on an epic census of the puffin population

Noah Payne-FrankSimon RawlesPatrick BarkhamMustafa Khalili

Ron Finley plants vegetable gardens in South Central LA — in abandoned lots, traffic medians, along the curbs. He hopes to offer some alternative to fast food in a community where "the drive-thrus are killing more people than the drive-bys."

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Volunteer firefighter Mark Bezos tells a story of an act of heroism that didn't go quite as expected — but that taught him a big lesson: Don't wait — give now.

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Prof James Hansen warns public not to be fooled by 'diversionary tactic' from deniers

Suggestions that global warming has stalled are a "diversionary tactic" from "deniers" who want the public to be confused over climate change, according to the world's best-known climate scientist. Prof James Hansen, who first alerted the world to climate change in 1988, said on Friday: "It is not true that the temperature has not changed in the two decades."

Since 1998, when the Niño climate phenomenon caused global temperatures to soar, the rate of increase in warming has slowed, causing some sceptics to suggest climate change has stopped or that the effect of rising carbon dioxide levels on climate is not as great as previously thought.

Prof Hansen, speaking to BBC Radio 4's Today programme, rejected both arguments. "In the last decade it has warmed only a tenth of a degree compared to two-tenths of a degree in the preceeding decade, but that's just natural variability. There is no reason to be surprised by that at all," he said. "If you look over a 30-40 year period the expected warming is two-tenths of a degree per decade, but that doesn't mean each decade is going to warm two-tenths of a degree: there is too much natural variability."

Prof Hansen said the focus by some on "details" was a smokescreen. "This is a diversionary tactic. Our understanding of global warming and human-made climate change has not been affected at all," he said. "It's because the deniers [of the science] want the public to be confused. They raise these minor issues and then we forget about what the main story is. The main story is carbon dioxide is going up and it is going to produce a climate which is going to have dramatic changes if we don't begin to reduce our emissions." In 2008, scientists anticipated an upcoming slowing in temperature rises.

Prof Hansen, who recently stepped down from his Nasa post after almost 50 years to focus on communication, said the forecast impact of climate change was little affected by the recent slowdown in the rate of rising temperatures.

"Climate is a complicated system but there is no change at all in our understanding of climate sensitivity [to carbon dioxide] and where the climate is headed," he said. "Our understanding of sensitivity is based on the Earth's history, not on climate models, and we have good data on how the Earth responded in the past when carbon dioxide changed. So there is no reason to change the forecast for the long term." On 9 May, a new study of lake sediments from a remote meteorite crater in Siberia showed temperatures in the region were 8C higher the last time CO2 levels were as high as they are today. Last week, atmospheric CO2 concentrations reached the milestone 400 parts per million, for the first time in millions of years.

Prof Hansen has caused controversy in the past with statements including "CEOs of fossil fuel companies should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature" and the assertion that "coal-fired power plants are factories of death".

• Climate change
• James Hansen
• Climate change scepticism
• Climate change
• Radio 4
• Carbon emissions

Damian Carrington
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Residents in Chile discover around 600 dead animals washed up on the shore in Punta Choros, on the country's northern coast

Banned on the Hill tells how Canadian bureaucrats tried to silence Franke James because her views clashed with the government's push to develop Alberta's tar sands

Visual essays by Franke James reveal how the 'troublesome artist' was targeted because her views on climate change clashed with the push to develop Alberta's tar sands

• Franke James' art – in pictures

Canada, under the government of Stephen Harper, has exhibited little patience for dissent. The government has muzzled government scientists, insulted Nasa climate experts, and dismissed environmental protesters as dangerous radicals.

But there is apparently one woman whom the government can't shut up: the Toronto environmental writer, illustrator and activist Franke James, who turned the efforts to silence her into material for a new book.

Banned on the Hill: A True Story about Dirty Oil and Government Censorship, released this week, shows how Canadian bureaucrats tried to silence James because her views on climate change clashed with the Harper government's push to develop Alberta's tar sands.

The story is told through visual essays as well as official emails obtained by James, in which government bureaucrats discuss the troublesome artist and her work.

It also relies heavily on humour – some of it provided inadvertently by the government bureaucrats discussing what to do about James.

The artist said she received some 2,172 pages of official memos in which her name appeared.

The events go back to the summer of 2011 when Canadian officials intervened to try to shut down a show of James's work in Croatia hosted by a local environmental group.

James is not a household name in Canada, but she had apparently turned up on the government's radar for a series of visuals poking fun at Harper and demanding that polluters be held accountable for the tar sands.

For James, the decision to target her encapsulated the extreme measures taken by the Harper government to counter its critics, especially those who oppose the expansion of the tar sands, because of the heavy environmental consequences.

"It is almost like it's a corporation exercising extreme message control," she said in a phone interview. "It's as if Stephen Harper were the CEO of Canada the corporation and we were his employees and we were not allowed to step out of line or say what we believe is right or true because that would upset the company's brand.

"This fanatical obsession with message control to me is very much what you have in a company but in a democracy that shouldn't be the case."

The Harper administration's preoccupation with message control is now the stuff of legend in Canada. The government is acutely sensitive to criticism of its policies on fossil fuel and climate change.

The Alberta tar sands have until now operated as a vast store of carbon. Scientists estimate that mining it all would add a 0.4C temperature rise from Alberta alone.

Under Harper, Canada has ramped up production from the Alberta tar sands, and pulled out of the Kyoto climate agreement, as the country's greenhouse gas emissions rose.

The government also adopted a hardline approach to international critics, and dissenting voices within the Canadian bureaucracy. Government scientists were directed not to speak to the press and to remain in sight of media minders at international conferences – in case they happened to strike up a conversation with a passing reporter. Librarians were discouraged from attending outside conferences.

Scientific reports that arrived at findings not in keeping with the government's pro-energy policies were shelved for months, or published without the usual press release, so as to escape attention.

In one instance, reported by Macleans, 11 government bureaucrats exchanged more than 50 different emails discussing whether to grant an interview to an Ottawa Citizen reporter on a National Research Council study on snowfall patterns – and then turned him down.

Harper's iron-fisted message control is now viewed sufficiently seriously that Canada's information commission earlier this year launched an investigation into media controls on seven government departments, including environment and natural resources, which oversees tar sands development.

But the snowfall emails were just a fraction of the 2,172 pages of memos generated by Canadian bureaucrats discussing James's cancelled art show, and her subsequent protests. The emails – heavily redacted – were released to James after a laborious process of open records requests involving seven government departments.

The formidable email trail started when a local Croatian environmental group approached the embassy in Zagreb for support, which was initially received. But the then ambassador to Croatia, Thomas Marr, was furious to learn that James would be showing in Croatia and fired off an email to a staffer asking why she had ever been invited in the first place.

The email, heavily redacted, was eventually released to James under an open records request. "You have connected them with Ms James who has a 'green conscience' and whose work sharply criticises the men and women working in forestry and in oil sands in our great country?" the 11 July email asked. The subject line read: "Franke James is your fault?"

James's arts grant was cancelled, in what she said was an effort to shut down her tour.

She said the move came as a shock. "I was just going along in my blissful way," she said. "I really didn't think that I was at risk of getting shut down in any way."

James spent much of the next two years protesting against the move to blacklist her. She wound up installing her show as posters at Ottawa bus shelters, and began the lengthy process of getting the government to release its trove of emails discussing her show, and its decision to cut funding.

"It became clear that they really do not like my art speaking about climate change and I was censored especially because I promoted policies that were different to theirs," she said.

She became angrier as the pile of documents grew higher. At a time of government cutbacks, many resources had been put into maintaining her file. Harper's personal communications team followed her on Twitter. Senior civil servants signed off on emails discussing her. "There are people at really high levels monitoring my file," she said. "They are cutting a lot of important things, but wasting their time interfering with a climate change art show."

Unless there has been a major policy shift in the Harper government, the bureaucrats are unlikely to be done with James yet. Along with the book, she plans to take her campaign against the tar sands, and the Harper government's message control, on the road, putting up posters on street corners and bus shelters.

She also hopes the book will serve as a how-to guide to other activists hoping to take on the Harper administration, especially with humour. "It's kind of like a judo flip, meaning that you can actually flip someone who is much bigger than you."

• Activism
• Oil sands
• Protest
• Energy
• Fossil fuels
• Oil
• Canada
• Americas
• Stephen Harper

Suzanne Goldenberg
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Authorities push forward plans for 314 metre-high dam on Dadu river which would affect rare plants and fish

Chinese environmental authorities have approved construction plans for what could become the world's tallest dam, while acknowledging that the project would affect endangered plants and rare fish species.

The 314 metre-high dam (1,030ft) will serve the Shuangjiangkou hydropower project along the Dadu river in south-western Sichuan province, according to China's state news agency, Xinhua. A subsidiary of Guodian Group, one of China's five major state-owned power companies, will complete the project over a decade at an estimated cost of £2.9bn.

The dam will be far taller than the 185 metre-high Three Gorges dam along the Yangtze river – the world's most powerful hydroelectric project – and slightly edge out the current record holder, the 300 metre-high Nurek dam in Tajikistan. The world's second-tallest dam, the 292 metre-high Xiaowan dam on the Lancang (Mekong) river, is also in China.

China's environment ministry acknowledged that the dam would have an impact on the area's highly biodiverse flora and fauna.

"The project will affect the spawning and movement of rare fish species, as well as the growth of endangered plants, including the Chinese yew, which is under first-class state protection," the ministry said, according to Xinhua.

The ministry proposed counter-measures to mitigate the environmental impact, such as "protecting fish habitats in tributaries, building fish ladders and increasing fish breeding and releasing", Xinhua reported. The project is still awaiting a final go-ahead from China's state council.

The Dadu river is a tributary of the 450 mile-long Min river, which cuts through the centre of Sichuan province before joining the Yangtze further south.

Upon completion, the plant will have a total installed capacity of 2GW and produce nearly 8bn KW-hours of energy a year, about twice as much as the Hoover dam in the US.

China's hydropower development has surged in recent years as the country moves to increase non-fossil energy sources to 15% of its total energy use by 2020. Central authorities approved a controversial cascade of 13 dams on the pristine upper reaches of the Nu (Salween) river in January. The plans had stalled nearly a decade ago under pressure from environmental groups.

Scientists and environmental activists have raised concerns that a profusion of dams in south-west China could increase the area's risk of natural disasters, such as earthquakes and landslides.

Another hydroelectric project on the Dadu river prompted social unrest in 2004, as tens of thousands of farmers along its banks rioted against plans to relocate them. Authorities responded by halting the Pubugou dam's construction for a year.

• Hydropower
• China
• Asia Pacific
• Energy
• Renewable energy
• Endangered habitats
• Conservation
• Endangered species
• Animals
• Marine life

Jonathan Kaiman
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Cycle infrastructure isn't just about roads and junctions – it's about homes and gardens too. What can councils do to help?

In the recent flurry of local authority initiatives to promote cycling, the focus has been on junctions, cycle lanes, lorries and training. One question seems be almost totally neglected: "Where could I keep a bike?" For many people, a lack of secure storage rules out cycling completely. What if you live at the top of a block of flats and aren't strong enough to carry a bike up eight flights of stairs? Or perhaps there's no room in the narrow front hall of your house for one bike, let alone a family of wheels? What if your bike's been stolen once too often from the street and you can't afford to replace it?

Look at those places where people cycle as an ordinary way of getting around. In Cambridge and Oxford there are college bike sheds and lots of Victorian houses with back gardens. In Holland, blocks of flats – both private and council – either have a shared basement with bike racks and key access, or a basic shed for each household at ground level.

So why isn't cycle storage regarded as a housing issue? In Britain, there are guidelines for new buildings – for example, one cycle space per one- or two-bedroom flat in the London Plan – but no standards for retrofitting existing homes to enable cycling.

In April, local councils took over responsibility for public health from the abolished primary care trusts (PCTs). There is abundant evidence showing that investment in cycling brings huge public health dividends: reducing obesity, increasing levels of physical activity, cutting air pollution, benefiting mental health, and improving access to educational, work and leisure opportunities, especially for those on low incomes. This is backed up by a report from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. It will be interesting to see if the new health and wellbeing boards encourage council housing departments to invest in cycle storage.

Fresh thinking is certainly needed in planning departments. My council, Southwark, only approves one type of secure cycle storage for installation on its housing estates: individual vertical steel lockers. They are secure and convenient to manage. But at £600 each, plus installation (£300) and the cost of obtaining planning permission (£195), this is a pricey solution. Last year, Southwark spent £85,000 (including £50,000 from Transport for London) to install a total of 102 lockers on estates across the borough. At this rate, with 39,000 council tenants in the borough, it will take a century to make a dent in the demand.

One London borough has developed a significant improvement on the individual steel locker. The "Lambeth bike hangar", an adaptation of a Dutch design, sits directly on the street, taking up half a car-parking space, and has space for six bikes secured to racks under a lockable curved roof. Bike hangars are much cheaper per bike-space than individual vertical lockers, and they're easier to use: you roll your bike along the ground, rather than having to lift it up to shoulder height.

That's important, because providing bike storage isn't just about making life simpler for those who already cycle. It should enable new riders – young and old, tall and small. Following a successful pilot, Lambeth has now installed 27 bike hangars as part of an imaginative traffic-calming and greening project at Van Gogh Walk.

We need to ask who isn't cycling at the moment and think further about what's stopping them. In the late 60s, feminists who wondered why so few women came to political meetings realised that it was due to lack of childcare, rather than lack of interest; crèches were a practical response.

Similarly, the Disability Discrimination Act of 1995 made it an obligation for institutions to identify and remove barriers to participation in social, political and cultural life. It's time for a similar shift to take place in cycling. Cycle infrastructure is not just about roads and junctions – it's about homes and gardens too.

• Cycling
• Fitness
• Planning policy
• London
• Local government
• Housing
• Transport policy
• Transport

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We need a new narrative in which we frame migration as a way for people to adapt to climate change

This week the Guardian has been running a major series on "climate refugees" about the village of Newtok in Alaska, which faces an imminent threat to its existence from erosion.

The term is problematic for a number of reasons. The first being that people who are facing movement do not like the term. The word "refugee" brings to mind a number of (not always accurate) images: tented camps, long lines of people walking, dangerous boat crossings. People facing the prospect moving hope that they will have some choice in the timing and circumstances of their movement and that when they arrive they will find work and become active members of their new communities. Their hope is that they will move with dignity.

President Anote Tong of Kiribati, an island nation in the Pacific, told Australia's ABC Radio that the people of Kiribati do not want to leave as refugees but as skilled migrants. Similarly, Ursula Rakova, a campaigner from the Carteret Islands is highly critical of the "climate refugee" narrative: "Our plan is one in which we remain as independent and self-sufficient as possible. We wish to maintain our cultural identity and live sustainably wherever we are."

Apart from people's own rejection of the "climate refugee" term there are also several other problems. It's clear that there are connections between climate change and the movement of people, but the connections are not as clear as the "climate refugee" narrative suggests. The phrase conjures images of large numbers of people moving en masse over long distances and crossing international borders and possibly continents. It seems unlikely that climate change will produce this kind of human movement.

What seems more likely is that climate change might reinforce existing trends in short-term, short distance migration. For example, as subsistence farmers find it increasingly difficult to make a living in rural areas they may move to nearby cities to find work. Whole towns or villages will not move together: in fact, families may not even move together. Far more likely is that one or two household members will move, find work elsewhere and send money home to their community. This statement collected by the EACH-FOR research project from a farmer in Hueyotlipan, Mexico gives a sense of this kind of movement: "Times have changed … the rain is coming later now, so we produce less. The only solution is to go away, at least for a while. Each year I'm working for three to five months in Wyoming. That's my main source of income."

Another problem is that the phrase implies that it is easy to untangle the different causes of someone's movement – that we might be able to pick out a group of people who have moved solely because of climate change. This is very misleading. Even when climate change has contributed to someone's decision to move many other factors are often as, or more, important. This statement from a Somali farmer in a Ugandan refugee camp gives a clear sense of how multiple factors cause someone to move: "And since there was the war, we did not receive any support from the government. Therefore, there are combined factors that made us suffer: droughts and war. If war did not exist, then we might have been able to stay, but now that the land is looted, there is no way for us to claim it."

The "climate refugee" narrative leads us away from other vital questions about the connection between climate change and migration: the first being how we protect growing cities. As climate change reinforces the factors pushing people out of the countryside, people will move into areas exposed to new climate-related risks in cities. This raises huge questions about urban planning, infrastructure and how cities plan to deal with the effects of climate change. There is also the possibility that climate change, rather than being a driver for new movement might actually prevent people from moving. Moving to find work is one of the key ways people are coping with falling incomes in rural areas. But moving requires resources, and as people become poorer, moving becomes harder. Climate change could in fact trap people in dangerous locations.

We need a new narrative that helps us address these vital questions, and which the people who are actually moving feel positive about. We need a new narrative in which we frame migration as a way for people to adapt to climate. Rather than being seen as a negative consequence of climate change, we need to describe moving in dignity as a way for some people to survive.

• Alex Randall is project manager of the UK Climate Change and Migration Coalition: a network of refugee, migration and environmental organisations. The network exists to protect and support people at risk of displacement linked to environmental change.

• Climate change
• Alaska
• United States
• Migration
• Sea level
• Oceans
• Australia

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In the Cape Cod community of Falmouth, voters will decide if two, town-owned wind turbines will be taken down. Dozens have complained of headaches, insomnia and other issues since the first turbine started spinning in 2010.

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With supplies high and prices at historic lows, there's debate whether U.S. companies should be allowed to export the gas overseas for a higher price. Many energy companies have applied for government approval to ship liquefied natural gas worldwide. So far, only one company has gotten a license to do that in the past 30 years..

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Han Rosling demonstrates the dynamics of population growth, child mortality and carbon dioxide emissions

Claire ProvostClaudine Spera

Rangers aim to discover whether numbers have plummeted after a year of extreme weather in which 3,500 birds washed up dead

Nipped fingers and handfuls of guano will be the order of the day for wildlife rangers on the Farne Islands as they embark on an epic census on Friday to discover whether puffin numbers have plummeted after a year of extreme weather.

The 10 National Trust rangers living on the islands must dangle their bare fingers down 60,000 puffin burrows in the next two months to determine whether breeding pairs have fallen after the worst puffin "wreck" for 66 years.

The wreck in March, which saw 3,500 birds wash up dead along the north-east coast of Britain, was caused by icy easterly winds. It followed a summer when the puffins on the archipelago off Northumberland were flooded out of their underground homes, with more than 40% failing to breed.

"We're very concerned," said David Steel, head ranger on the Farne Islands. "We were very optimistic until last summer [2012] when we had a very wet summer and breeding success was poor. Then in March [2013] we've had this other extreme weather that actually killed quite a lot of puffins."

The census occurs every five years and since it began in 1939, puffin numbers on the Farnes have soared from 3,000 breeding pairs to 36,835 pairs in 2008. But that figure was a 30% fall from the high of 2003, raising fears that the extreme weather and warmer seas brought about by climate change may be affecting the puffins.

The birds spend winter floating on the North Sea, and feed by diving for sand eels. But in stormy weather the water becomes too turbid to detect their prey. Warmer sea temperatures may also be driving the sand eels further north.

But puffins are resilient, long-lived birds – the oldest Farne resident is 32 years old – and Steel said that last year may not be as disastrous as it first appears. The "wreck" killed the old, sick and young but wardens have reported good numbers returning for the breeding season.

Puffins have flourished on the Farnes thanks to the National Trust's careful management of the 40,000 visitors who take boat trips to the islands each year – and the absence of ground predators. There are no foxes or rats, although wardens are monitoring this carefully after a ship ran aground on the islands in March.

Counting puffins is undertaken by carefully reaching into each burrow with a bare hand so that rangers can gently detect the presence of monogamous pairs and whether they are sitting on an egg.

"I've got a really enthusiastic team here and for the first couple of weeks they are going to love doing the census," said Steel, a veteran of three puffin counts. "But after a while, they may be sick of it. The amount of bites and scars they are going to have will be interesting."

• National Trust puffin webcam

• Birds
• Conservation
• Wildlife
• Marine life
• Coastlines
• Winter

Patrick Barkham
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National Trust footage of a puffin laying an egg in its burrow on the Farne Islands. Puffins are being counted over the next two months to assess whether extreme weather has affected breeding numbers

Claims that Julia Gillard's unpopularity were linked to her introduction of carbon pricing in 2012 don't stack up

Since the disappointment of Copenhagen in 2009, Australia has witnessed a concerted scare campaign against action on global warming. The scare campaign has been led by senior commentators in (Murdoch owned) News Limited papers, by conservative radio shock-jocks on the airwaves, and in parliament by extremist opposition party leader Tony Abbott.

From the moment Australia's carbon pricing legislation package, the Clean Energy Future Act, was announced Tony Abbott has barnstormed from one end of Australia to another, declaring a "blood oath" that repealing the carbon price would be his first priority if elected:

"I am giving you the most definite commitment any politician can give that this tax will go. This is a pledge in blood."

Behind this incendiary phrase is Abbott's own climate change policy, a mishmash of ineffective handouts to industry to "clean up" polluting power stations and industrial plants, a tree-planting program, investment in bio-char, and token efforts towards energy efficiency.

Collectively, these programs are termed "direct action", which can be boiled down, in the words of shadow minister Malcolm Turnbull, to the Liberal Party's sop to the climate change deniers in their ranks:

If the theory of climate change was proved to be nonsense, then obviously there would be no point in cutting emissions at all. If the rest of the world ultimately resolved to do nothing then we would very likely be better off spending the resources available on adaptation - moving to higher ground and so on.

The fact remains that the direct action policy, which aims to reach the same 5% carbon emission reductions as Labor's carbon price, is mostly a mishmash of unanswered questions and wishful thinking.

Viciousness and personal attacks have characterised the blood oath carbon price repeal campaign. Abbott and other senior conservative front-bench MPs have spoken at rallies where posters and banners have depicted Prime Minister Julia Gillard as a "witch" and a "bitch". Tony Abbott, for a time, defended conservative radio host Alan Jones for claiming at a Liberal Party fundraiser that Gillard's father "died of shame". Independent MP, Tony Windsor, who voted for the carbon price, received death threats.

Unsurprisingly, over the past three years public support for the Gillard government has declined to record low levels. Many in the media, and some within the government, blame the introduction of the carbon price for the low polling numbers. Unfortunately, these claims don't stack up.

The graph below shows the decline in the two-party polling for Labor, matched alongside the total support and oppose polling for the carbon price. The polling figures are from Essential Report, a fortnightly Australian poll.

Prime Minister Gillard announced the carbon price in February 2011, after winning the election the previous August. By this stage, the fall in the government's polling numbers is already visible.

The Clean Energy Bill passed through the lower house in October 2011 and the Senate in November. The carbon price came into effect the following year from 1 July 2012. In this time, support for the carbon price dropped to rock bottom and opposition sky-rocketed. Despite a massive pro-carbon price campaign run by Australia's environment movement, Tony Abbott's "blood oath" scare tactics won out through 2011 (although as is clear, his personal approval suffered).

Something happened after 1 July 2012 however.

The apocalyptic predictions made by Tony Abbott did not come to pass. The sky didn't fall. Mining and manufacturing towns weren't wiped off the map. Regional airlines didn't double their prices. The carbon price wrecking ball, python strike and cobra squeeze has not impacted Australia's interest rates, employment levels or inflation.

Support for the carbon price, and opposition to it, narrowed and equalised.

What didn't happen was an increase in Labor's vote. Throughout 2011 and 2012, while the carbon price's stocks fell, Labor's also remained low. From 1 July 2012, the two numbers decoupled. Labor's polling remained stuck, while opposition to the carbon price declined and support increased.

This month, we passed an unprecedented milestone: global carbon levels exceeded levels not seen in over 3 million years. The carbon price in Australia has contributed to a 10-year low in carbon emissions. Few in Australia have noticed either turning point. Meanwhile, conservative state governments have quietly been dismantling carbon reduction policies established by the previous Labor governments, wilfully ignoring warnings by the scientific community of the risks.

It is unlikely that the election will be fought on climate change, or that Tony Abbott will follow through on his threat to make the election a referendum on the carbon price.

If Tony Abbott does win the Australian election on 14 September, he has announced he will do everything he can to abolish the carbon price, which would Australia the only nation in the world to remove carbon pricing laws. No doubt, an Abbott-led Australia will accelerate exports of fossil fuels, but it remains to be seen if he can dismantle the carbon price.

• Carbon tax
• Emissions trading
• Australia
• Tony Abbott
• Julia Gillard

Alexander White
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Asda boss Andy Clarke says he believes the supermarket is rebuilding its reputation after being embroiled in the scandal

Asda boss Andy Clarke believes the supermarket has regained the trust of its customers following the horsemeat scandal, when horse DNA and the veterinary drug bute was found in its products.

He said: "It's fair to say trust was dented. There was some marginal sales impact initially, but we've seen that recover. We are back to where we were."

His comments came as the UK's second biggest supermarket revealed that sales in the 14 weeks to April 12 were up 1.3%. The figures include extra revenue from increased prices.

Clarke also criticised Tesco's price promise campaign, which has been the subject of complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority by Sainsbury's, which called it gimmicky and unsustainable. "Our price strategy isn't a gimmick. For others, clearly, there's a big investment involved. We will stick to our price agenda and that will win through. Short-term value isn't a long-term solution."

• Asda
• Horsemeat scandal
• Supermarkets
• Retail industry
• Food & drink
• Food & drink industry
• The meat industry

Simon Neville
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Research by Global Witness revealing the murky world of land investments is a timely reminder for G8 leaders when they meet next month in Northern Ireland (Top bank accused of bankrolling land invasion for rubber, 13 May).

For too long, land investments have remained dangerously unregulated and opaque, exposing poor communities to having their homes grabbed from beneath their feet, including the land they rely on for food to eat and from which they make a living. Globally, the amount of land that has been sold or leased over the past decade could feed 1 billion people.

As host of the G8 summit, the UK government says it wants to begin tackling global hunger and clamp down on land grabs. A significant step towards this would be improving transparency of investments to shine a light on secretive land deals and to ensure that the interests of affected communities are upheld.
Ben Phillips
Campaigns director, Oxfam

• Land rights
• Deutsche Bank
• Banking
• European banks
• G8

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South Uist: Darker featherings of freshly excavated sand reveal where the birds have been extending or refurbishing their nests

Only where wind and weather have worked away at their seaward faces to expose the sand beneath is it apparent that the high turf-covered mounds were once dunes at the edge of the sea. Near the summit of the largest, the action of the wind has scoured out a sandy trough and created a vertical face some 20ft high.

This morning, however, the wind is kind. Somewhere high above, a skylark is singing, and the turf on which we're lying, our heads level with the lip of the sandy trough, is studded with violets. It's an idyllic place to watch the sand martins. Above our heads, these birds are tracing complex patterns in the air: circling, fluttering, swooping, accompanying themselves in their aerial dance with a constant twittering and chirruping. Occasionally one will skim past at eye-level, giving us a superb view of the distinctive brown band across the breast and the softly forked tail, before sailing higher into the air to rejoin the rest of the throng. 

More and more birds are making precision landings at the entrances to tunnels in the sandy face – some slipping in with ease while others, wings tight against their bodies, wriggle through less well-developed openings. Darker featherings of freshly excavated sand below some of the entrances reveal where the sand martins have been busy extending or refurbishing their nesting places. 

Now and again, rather than entering the tunnel, a bird remains outside, often perched on a ledge so small as to be barely visible. Their presence doesn't seem to deter others from heading for the same tunnel, but the arrival of an incoming sand martin almost invariably leads to a brief scuffle, followed by a flurry of wings as the vanquished turns away and drops back into flight.

On the very edge of the colony, a single hovering bird determinedly attacks the vertical face, feet scraping away at the soft sand as it begins work on what will hopefully become another occupied nest tunnel.

• Birds
• Wildlife
• Animals
• Scotland
• Rural affairs

Christine Smith
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An international minimum wage, whether based on a percentage of the median country wage or on a rate set by international committees, could be destructive to emerging economies (A way to start healing the huge wound that Savar left, 13 May). Not only would such an initiative be costly to administer, but increased costs resulting from a higher minimum wage, and the corresponding incentive among producers to lower costs through automation, would reduce overall demand for labour in emerging economies. Not surprisingly, in the context of prevailing macroeconomic conditions and pent-up demand for low-cost production, the prospect of black market sweatshops becomes all too real.

The problem could be addressed at the other end of the supply chain. Western retailers should be required to display details of their full supply chain to consumers and invest in monitoring conditions at all stages. The "fair trade" concept could then be applied to all types of industries, allowing consumers the choice of paying a small premium on products produced in acceptable working conditions.
Piers Sanders, Vanina El-Khoury, David Faye, Cui Hailiang and Samsoo Oh
Cambridge Judge Business School

• Your article (Fashion chains sign deal for worker safety, 14 May), relating to a legally binding agreement in Bangladesh, is encouraging. However, it is shameful to read that famous retailers with huge buying power are not insisting on fair pay and conditions for an obviously exploited workforce, some of whom are paid as little as £25 per month. Assuming a machinist sews around 10 garments a day, that would be less than 10p per unit. If minimum wages were tripled to £75 per month (say 37p per hour), we would have to pay an additional 50p per garment, including a healthy margin. Ultimately, I blame the retailers for not laying down rules with their suppliers, who seem to care more about tax havens and shareholders with little thought for their hardworking employees.
Peter Connolly
Nottingham

• Bangladesh
• Fair trade
• South and Central Asia
• Retail industry
• Fashion industry
• Poverty
• Employment

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