Environment

UK fisheries minister says he will refuse any deal that goes against three key principles at key meeting in Brussels

Richard Benyon, the UK's fisheries minister, has vowed to drive "ambitious and radical reform" of the EU's common fisheries policy at a key meeting in Brussels this week.

In an interview with the Guardian, he listed three main goals for the UK – to ensure that a new proposal for fishing to be carried on strictly within a "maximum sustainable yield" that would be legally binding; a ban on the discarding of edible fish at sea, and a devolution of key aspects of managing fishing quota to member states, instead of being controlled entirely from Brussels.

This week's tense meeting, which follows more than two years of negotiations over the management of the EU's dwindling fish stocks, will not reach a conclusion until late on Tuesday night or some time on Wednesday morning, the European commission warned. Once a common position has been agreed, more talks will follow next week to finalise further details.

Benyon acknowledged that there were "forces [that want] to scupper this deal", but said the UK would refuse to do a deal "that goes against our principles".

While a discards ban is likely to come into force in some form, some member states want fishermen to have much more leeway in how much of their catch they are allowed to throw away as being unavoidable. The UK wants no more than 5% of any catch to be allowed to be discarded under any circumstances, but other countries have suggested as much as doubling this.

But Benyon warned that governments must work closely with fishermen in order to make the reforms work. "We are working closely with the fishing industry to do [the reforms] in a practical way," he said. "I do not want to transfer a problem that happens at sea to landfill."

He said that co-operation with fishing fleets was already bearing fruit. "Great work has been done on a dramatic reduction in discards of white fish," he said. "Much has come from incentivising, working with fishermen."

Although some large fishing interests, particularly in Spain and France, have been starkly opposed to any deal on discards and a legally binding maximum sustainable yield, Benyon emphasised that many fishermen had been supportive. "It would be entirely wrong if people thought the ban was in the teeth of opposition of the industry – though some are very concerned about the practicalities [such as] having to bring back fish having maybe been gone for days."

He said: "In fairness to them, they are raising concerns in a way that accepts this is going to happen and to make it work."

The minister has seen for himself what discarding means in practice – he went to sea with a trawler, and saw whiting being discarded in the North Sea.

He credits campaigners with helping to ensure there was support for a discards ban. "I would never have been able to get agreement on radical reform agenda without all the NGOs on this. [This is] a revolution on how to manage our seas."

Some countries are also reluctant to allow the "maximum sustainable yield" – a scientific measure that would ensure that quotas were set at a level where the stocks could restore themselves naturally – to be made legally binding, as the UK and most northern European countries want.

Scientific research will need to be brought to bear as fisheries management develops. Benyon noted the effects of climate change: "The seas are changing – cod are moving further north, other fish are in greater abundance, mackerel are moving."

On "regionalisation", which would allow some aspects of fisheries management – such as net size and the level of quota given to smaller and larger boats – to be decided by member states, there is broader agreement. Benyon described the current situation in which fishermen in Ullapool were having their net size decided in Brussels. "How bonkers is that?" he asked.

A key aspect would be ensuring that the regulations are applied fairly across the whole of the EU's fisheries. "[Previous] proposals would have had some trawlers fishing some waters but not having to abide by some of the rules. The ridiculous concept of the common fisheries policy is that [it] tries to manage waters from the Arctic to the southern Mediterranean. You can't have a system that applies to all ecosystems but you can have common principles you can make in law."

This week's meeting is the culmination of more than two years of wrangling. The decisive starting point came early in 2011 when the European fisheries commissioner, Maria Damanaki, publicly disclosed her key aim of ending the wasteful practice of discards. This proposal had itself followed years of work behind the scenes by the commission, but when the proposals began to be publicly debated there were strong voices of opposition from some quarters.

The commission's proposals were narrowly passed by member state fisheries ministers, though they were nearly scuppered at several points. Then they received strong support in a vote in the European parliament. Now, the final stages of the process will provide the last chance for opponents of the reforms to derail the proposals. It will then take further work to put the finishing touches on the reforms, before they can come into force.

Commissioner Damanaki said: "Substantial progress has been made in the negotiations between the European parliament and the council [of ministers] on the commission's proposal for a reformed common fisheries policy. The EU is on the doorstep of a historical deal that would put fish stocks on the road to recovery, eliminate the wasteful practice of discarding and ensure that decisions are taken as close as possible to fishermen.

"It is the responsibility of all institutions not to jeopardise a final deal because of disagreements over a few percentage points [in terms of amount of inadvertent catch that can be discarded]; one or two years [between the proposed introduction of a ban]; detailed technical rules or institutional power struggle. It is now time for both the European parliament and the council to make that extra final step towards each other that is necessary to come to a final agreement that will launch a new era of healthy fish stocks, viable fishing industries and more and better paid jobs for fishermen."

While green campaigners have warned that the battle is far from over, and that the opponents of the reforms could yet gain the upper hand in the final hours, Benyon said he was optimistic that the reforms would be successful. "I do not see this is some great giant gulf [among member states over the issues]," he said. "There could be blocking minority against reform … but I do not think they will find the opportunity to scupper the deal."

But he admitted compromises might be needed: "I might have to make a decision that will not particularly please me or many people who write to me or campaign to me … [but] I am determined that any agreement will not go against our principles."

• Fishing
• Food
• Wildlife
• Conservation
• Animals
• Marine life
• Fish
• Food & drink
• Seafood
• European commission
• European Union
• Europe

Fiona Harvey
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The apple trees are heading for full blossom in Michigan after a disastrous 2012 crop, when only 15 percent of the apples survived. But this year's harvest is expected to rebound.

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If scholars don't take an ethical stance against corporate money, where's the moral check on power?

In 1927 the French philosopher Julien Benda published a piercing attack on the intellectuals of his day. They should, he argued in La Trahison des Clercs (the treason of the scholars), act as a check on popular passions. Civilisation, he claimed, is possible only if intellectuals stand in opposition to the demands of political "realism" by upholding universal principles. "Thanks to the scholars," he said, "humanity did evil for two thousand years, but honoured good." Europe might have been lying in the gutter, but it was looking at the stars.

But those ideals, Benda argued, had been lost. Europe was now lying in the gutter, looking into the gutter. The "immense majority" of intellectuals, artists and clergy had joined "the chorus of hatreds": nationalism, racism, the worship of power and war. In doing so, they justified and magnified political passions. Across Europe, scholars on both the left and the right had become "ready to support in their own countries the most flagrant injustices", to abandon universal principles in favour of national exceptionalism and to proclaim "the supreme morality of violence". He quoted the French anarcho-syndicalist Georges Sorel, who eulogised "the superb blond beast wandering in search of prey and carnage".

The result of this intellectual support for domination, Benda argued, was that there was now no moral check on the pursuit of self-interest. Rather than forming a bulwark against popular delusions, Europe's thinkers turned them into doctrines. With remarkable foresight, Benda predicted that this would lead inexorably to "the greatest and most perfect war ever seen in the world". This war would be genocidal in intent, and would not be stopped by any treaties or institutions. In 1927, these were bold claims.

I'm not suggesting an equivalence between those times and these. I'm summarising Benda to highlight a general principle: the need for a disinterested class of intellectuals which acts as a counterweight to prevailing mores. Racism, nationalism and war are only three of the many hazards to which society is exposed if that challenge should fail: if, that is, most scholars side with the soldiers or the sellers.

Today the dominant forces have changed. Now the weak state, not the strong state, is fetishised by those in power, who insist that its functions be devolved to "the market", meaning corporations and the very rich. Economic growth and the forces that drive it, whether they enhance or harm people's lives, are venerated. And too many scholars seem prepared to support the new dispensation.

Two weeks ago I castigated the new chief scientist, Sir Mark Walport, for misinforming the public about risk, making unscientific and emotionally manipulative claims and indulging in scaremongering and wild exaggeration in defence of the government's position. Since then I have seen his first speech in his new role and realised that the problem runs deeper than I thought.

Speaking at the Centre for Science and Policy at Cambridge University, Walport maintained that scientific advisers had five main functions, and the first of these was "ensuring that scientific knowledge translates to economic growth". No statement could more clearly reveal what Benda called the "assimilation" of the intellectual. As if to drive the point home, the press release summarising his speech revealed that the centre is sponsored, among others, by BAE Systems, BP and Lloyd's.

Last week, two days before CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere reached 400 parts per million, Oxford University opened a new geoscience laboratory named after its sponsor, Shell. Among its roles is helping to find and develop new sources of fossil fuel.

This is one of many such collaborations. Last year, for instance, BP announced that it will spend £60m on research at Manchester University partly to help it drill deeper for oil. In the United States and Canada, universities go further: David Lynch, dean of engineering at the University of Alberta, appears in advertisements by the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, whose purpose is to justify and normalise tar sands extraction.

As the campaign group People and Planet points out, universities help provide fossil fuel corporations not only with expertise but also with a "social licence to operate". Climate change is one of the great moral issues of our age, but the scholars in the strongest position to challenge the industry responsible are, instead, lending it what Benda calls their "moral prestige". Neoliberal economists, imperialist historians, war-mongering philosophers, pliable chief scientists, compromised energy researchers: all are propelling us into the arms of power.

In 1998, the vice-chancellors of the UK's universities decided that they would no longer take money for cancer research from tobacco firms. Over the past few days I have asked the Shell professor of earth sciences at Oxford, the university itself and the umbrella body Universities UK to explain the ethical difference between taking tobacco money for cancer research and taking fossil fuel money for energy research. None of these great heads, despite my repeated attempts to engage them, were prepared even to attempt an answer.

So perhaps this is where hope lies: unlike Benda's scholars, these people have not yet developed a justifying ideology which permits them to excuse or glorify the compromises they have made with power. Perhaps we have not yet abandoned the redeeming hypocrisy of what Benda called "honouring good".

Twitter: @georgemonbiot A fully referenced version of this article can be found at monbiot.com

• University funding
• Climate change
• Oil
• Oil
• Oil sands
• Royal Dutch Shell
• BP

George Monbiot
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In this spoof documentary the naturalist protests against HSBC's illegal logging by entering the den of the banker

Carbon dioxide at its highest level for 3m years and Damian Carrington's story merits only page five in the Guardian (Report, 11 May); it doesn't even get a mention on the front cover. As a 15-year-old I am confused as to why this is considered less important than the horse meat scandal or the Co-op bank's difficulties or, on the second page, talk of another coalition. I realise that these things are important, but I think that the survival of the human race is just a little more important than parliament, which, with the current rates of CO2 emissions, will most likely be flooded by about 2200.
Geoffrey Liddell
Clatford, Hampshire

• Damian Carrington tells us: "The world's governments have agreed to keep the rise in global average temperature ... to 2C". This is precisely what has not happened. More than 20 years of climate change negotiations have failed to yield any agreement whatsoever to limit global emissions to any specific target.
David Campbell
Professor of international business law, University of Leeds

• It is not only environmental campaigners who oppose European investments in coal power (Report, 13 May). It is also mainstream scientists, concerned citizens and the people that Christian Aid works with across the developing world, who are already feeling the impacts of a changing climate on their lives.

Investing now in unabated coal technologies in EU and EU accession countries will make it impossible for Europe to achieve the ambitious carbon cuts needed to lead global action against climate change.
Dr Alison Doig
Senior adviser on climate change, Christian Aid

• The letter writers against Oxford's partnership with Shell (Letters, 9 May) forget that our understanding of climate change is underpinned by geological knowledge obtained in a relatively underfunded academic field, coupled with a neglected British Geological Survey.

As James Lovelock has demonstrated, once triggered, global heating will be irreversible on a human time scale, and so aiming to keep global temperatures within 2C is a meaningless target. It would be madness to turn our backs on investing in carbon capture and storage on a massive scale, even if this is a spinoff of the wicked hydrocarbon industry. This could eventually reduce atmospheric levels if it were treated with the same urgency as the second world war Manhattan project by governments who appear interested only in keeping enough of the people happy at any one time. Companies like Shell can only be expected to clear up our waste gases if they are given clear political leadership, not warm words.
David Nowell
New Barnet, Hertfordshire

• Roger Scruton (Comment, 11 May) criticises the government for not agreeing with conservative voters who believe the "climate change" agenda has been foisted on us by an unaccountable lobby of politicised intellectuals. Does he think manmade emissions of greenhouse gases should be reduced by other means, or does he consider the IPCC's assessment of the science and its consequences is completely wrong?
Stewart Reddaway
Baldock, Hertfordshire 

• Climate change
• Climate change
• Climate change scepticism

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Taunton Vale, Somerset: The plan had been to link the Bristol and English channels, to avoid the voyage round Land's End

Years ago, at Wrantage, south-east of Taunton, we found the masonry that was once part of an aqueduct spanning the road, and, across the fields, the blocked entrance to a tunnel that went through Crimson Hill, both relics of a long-defunct canal. Now we had directions to surviving traces of the same canal on the other side of the hill.

We went on a day when, at last, the hedges lining the winding country lanes through Hatch Beauchamp, Beer Crowcombe and Curry Mallet were sunlit green instead of wintry brown. Beside Beer Crowcombe church, which stands in farmland apart from the village, we took a footpath along the edge of a freshly ploughed field, then down a few steps to what remains of this section of the canal, just pools of stagnant black water crossed by a rudimentary bridge made of two planks.

You can make out the line of the canal through the fields, where trees lean out or have fallen across it from the collapsed banks of what was once a viable waterway, a bold commercial venture and a notable feat of engineering, with three tunnels and four inclined planes, carrying freight down to Chard. The original plan in 1810 had been one of the most visionary of canal schemes, linking the Bristol and English channels, so that vessels might avoid the long and dangerous voyage round Land's End. But the stretch from Taunton to Chard was all that materialised and, before long, that had been made redundant by new rail routes, now themselves long-defunct.

Not far from Beer Crowcombe we paused at the arresting view of Hatch Court, a grand Palladian mansion standing in its deer park, with an ornamental octagonal pavilion where you might expect a mere lodge or gatehouse. We took the grassy footpath to Hatch Beauchamp church, which stands behind the mansion's walled garden. And in this quiet place apart, found a window dedicated to the memory of JRM Chard VC, hero of Rorke's Drift.

• Transport
• Rural affairs

John Vallins
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Demand for rhino horn, used in traditional Chinese medicine, is fueling a slaughter of the animals in Africa. In Vietnam, the sought-after commodity is fetching prices as high as $1,400 an ounce, or about the price of gold. There, some believe ground horn can cure everything from hangovers to cancer.

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Demand for rhino horn, used in traditional Chinese medicine, is fueling a slaughter of the animals in Africa. In Vietnam, the sought-after commodity is fetching prices as high as $1,400 an ounce, or about the price of gold. There, some believe ground horn can cure everything from hangovers to cancer.

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Justice Elena Kagan says Vernon Bowman's late-season soybean crop infringed on patent for GM soybeans

The US supreme court came down solidly on the side of the agricultural giant Monsanto on Monday, ruling unanimously that an Indiana farmer could not use patented genetically modified soybeans to create new seeds without paying the company.

The case – which was cast by the farmer's supporters as a classic tale of David vs Goliath – could well dictate the future of modern farming.

In an unanimous ruling written by Justice Elena Kagan, the court ruled that the farmer, Vernon Bowman, had infringed on Monsanto's patent for its GM soybeans when he bought some of those seeds from a local grain elevator and planted them for a second, late-season crop. Monsanto sued, arguing that Bowman had signed a contract when he initially bought the Roundup Ready soybeans in the spring, agreeing not to save any of the harvest for replanting. The seeds are genetically modified to be resistant to Roundup Ready weedkiller.

On Monday, the nine justices agreed. Kagan rejected the farmer's main argument, that Monsanto's patent was exhausted, because he had bought the seeds from a grain elevator. "Patent exhaustion does not permit a farmer to reproduce patented seeds through planting and harvesting without the patent holder's permission," she wrote.

Bowman, who is in his 70s, grew up in south-western Indiana and has farmed the same stretch of land for most of the past four decades. He had for years been faithfully signing contracts with Monsanto for his main soybean crop. More than 90% of the soybean grown in the mid-west is believed to be GM strains, like Round-Up Ready. But Bowman got into trouble when he decided to buy up junk seed from a local grain elevator and use it for a second, late-season planting. The advantage to the farmer was that such seeds were cheaper than the price demanded by Monsanto, and the late-season plantings were a riskier crop.

Monsanto sued, arguing that it maintained patent rights on the GM seeds even after sold on by a third party, and won a settlement of $84,456 (£53,500) which was upheld on Monday.

Kagan, above, agreed with the company's argument that if it allowed farmers like Bowman to replant his seeds after just one season's use, it would have no business model:

"In the case at hand, Bowman planted Monsanto's patented soybeans solely to make and market replicas of them, thus depriving the company of the reward patent law provides for the sale of each article. Patent exhaustion provides no haven for that conduct. We accordingly affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit."

Monsanto said the ruling would help shore up the US patent system, and encourage greater innovation.

"The Court's ruling today ensures that longstanding principles of patent law apply to breakthrough 21st century technologies that are central to meeting the growing demands of our planet and its people," David Snively, the company's general counsel, said in a statement on the company's website. "The ruling also provides assurance to all inventors throughout the public and private sectors that they can and should continue to invest in innovation that feeds people, improves lives, creates jobs, and allows America to keep its competitive edge."

Kagan said it was a narrow ruling. But some commentators said the decision could offer greater protection to those with patents on products that can be self-replicated, like cell lines and software.

The decision will be seen as a big defeat for those who had looked to Bowman's case to challenge the growing power over modern farming that is wielded by giant agricultural and biotech firms. By the start of this year, Monsanto had filed 144 lawsuits against 466 farmers and small farm businesses alleging patent infringement, according to a report from the Centre for Food Safety which has championed Bowman's case.

The report noted that three big companies now control more than half of the global seed market – a position that has sent prices soaring. The report said the average cost of planting an acre of soybeans had risen 325% between 1995 and 2011.

• GM
• US supreme court
• United States
• Indiana
• Farming
• Agriculture

Suzanne Goldenberg
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Farms processing insects for animal feed might soon become global reality as demand grows for sustainable feed sources

The best way to feed the 9 billion people expected to be alive by 2050 could be to rear billions of common houseflies on a diet of human faeces and abattoir blood and grind them up to use as animal feed, a UN report published on Monday suggests. Doing so would reduce the pressure on the Earth's forests and seas as food sources.

The case for houseflies - or other insects like crickets, beetles, bees, wasps, caterpillars, grasshoppers, termites and ants - becoming a major industrial food source is being taken seriously by governments, says the report, because they grow exceptionally fast and thrive on the waste of many industrial processes. The authors envisage fully automated insect works being set up close to breweries or food factories that produce high volumes of farm waste. Each could breed hundreds of tonnes of insects a year that would be fed to other animals.

"The prospect of farms processing insects for feed might soon become a global reality due to a growing demand for sustainable feed sources," say the authors who have been working with the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) on the potential for insects improving human food security.

"The bioconversion process takes low-cost waste materials and generates a valuable commodity. Depending on the species, a single female fly can lay up to 1,000 eggs over a seven-day period, which then hatch into larvae. Potential big users would need vast quantities of the product – some pet food businesses alone could use over 1,000 tonnes per month," the report adds.

Insect eating may be frowned upon in the west but termites, mealybugs, dung beetles, stink bugs, leaf cutter ants, paper wasps, even some species of mosquitoes are all relished by someone, somewhere, suggests the study. Eighty grasshopper species are regularly eaten; in Ghana during the spring rains, winged termites are collected and fried or made into bread. In South Africa they are eaten with a maize porridge. Chocolate-coated bees are popular in Nigeria, certain caterpillars are favoured in Zimbabwe, and rice cooked with crunchy wasps was a favourite meal of the late Emperor Hirohito in Japan.

"In the past there has been a tendency to say insects are for primitive, stupid people. This is nonsense, a misconception that must be corrected," says lead author Arnold van Huis, who has helped write a Dutch insect recipe book that includes mealyworm pizza and locust ravioli.

Westerners barely know what they are missing, he suggests. Dragonflies boiled in coconut milk with ginger are an Indonesian delicacy; beekeepers in parts of China are considered virile because they eat larvae from their hives, and tarantulas are popular in Cambodia. Europe gave up eating them centuries ago, but Pliny the elder, the Roman scholar, wrote that aristocrats "loved to eat beetle larvae reared on flour and wine" while Aristotle described the best time to harvest cicadas: "The larva on attaining full size becomes a nymph; then it tastes best, before the husk is broken. At first the males are better to eat, but after copulation the females, which are then full of white eggs," he wrote.

So far, says the UN, more than 1,900 species of insects have been identified as human food, with insects forming part of the traditional diets of possibly 2 billion people. The most consumed insects are the beetles (468 species), followed by ants, bees and wasps (351), crickets, locusts and cockroaches (267), and butterflies, moths and silkworms (253).

The crunch factor for governments and food producers may be the lower costs. Cattle and poultry are poor at converting food to body weight, but crickets, says the report, need just two kilograms of feed for every one kilogram of weight gained. "In addition, insects can be reared on organic side-streams including human and animal waste, and can help reduce contamination. Insects are reported to emit fewer greenhouse gases and less ammonia than cattle or pigs, and they require significantly less land and water than cattle rearing," says the report.

It is because insects are metabolically more efficient that it is potentially far cheaper to raise them om a large scale than any other animal, says Van Huis. But because of the psychological factors [of many people not liking the idea of eating insects directly] the greatest potential in the short term at least, could be to rear insects to provide animal feed, he said.

Eva Muller, director of the FAO's forest economic policy and products division, which co-authored the report, said: "We are not saying that people should be eating bugs. We are saying that insects are just one resource provided by forests, and insects are pretty much untapped for their potential for food, and especially for feed."

Insects, say the authors, are widely misunderstood. "[They] deliver a host of ecological services that are fundamental to the survival of humankind. They play an important role as pollinators in plant reproduction, in improving soil fertility through waste bioconversion, and in natural biocontrol for harmful pest species, and they provide a variety of valuable products for humans such as honey and silk and medical applications such as maggot therapy."

The Netherlands is now the centre for research into industrial-scale insect rearing with several companies and universities working on ways to scale up production. "The larvae of mealworm species and the superworm are [now] reared as feed for reptile, fish and avian pets [in the Netherlands]. They are also considered particularly fit for human consumption and are offered as human food in specialised shops," says the report.

Insect recipes

Grasshopper tortillas

Collect 1,000 young grasshoppers. Soak for 24 hours. Boil and let dry. Fry in a pan with garlic, onion, salt and lemon. Roll up in tortillas with chilli sauce and guacamole.

Witchetty grub barbecue

Sear grubs with butter and garlic in a hot pan until brown. Grab the head and bite off the rest. The taste is of fried egg with a hint of nuts.

• Food
• Food & drink
• Food security
• Insects
• Wildlife
• Animals
• United Nations

John Vidal
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A UN report recommends insects as a nutritious and eco-friendly food, and suggests 'raising the status of insects' in restaurants and recipes to lessen 'consumer disgust'. Would you eat insects?

City councils and local activists have stymied shale gas mining in New York, and could prove an example for others to follow

Readers of the New York Daily News were treated to a little unsolicited advice from Ed Rendell recently. The former Pennsylvania governor, a Democrat, who presided over much of the fracking boom in his state from 2003 to 2011, invited his neighboring governor – who's been sitting on the fence over shale gas mining – to join the party.

In Pennsylvania, Rendell effused, "thousands of solid jobs with good salaries were created, communities came back to life and investment in the state soared".

What the Daily News failed to mention is that Rendell has lobbied the Environmental Protection Agency in favor of a driller company, Range Resources, and is currently a paid consultant of Elements Partners, a private equity firm with big stakes in several energy companies that are engaged in fracking. 

And what Rendell failed to mention is that the drilling of over 150,000 wells for natural gas has transformed large swaths of rural Pennsylvania into what basically are industrial zones, bristling with monster trucks, wastewater ponds, and traffic jams. Air pollution is higher in counties with drilling than those without and residents complain about round-the-clock noise. 

Ed Rendell also didn't mention the McIntyre family, who live in Butler County – western Pennsylvania's frack zone – and whose members suffer from projectile vomiting, headaches, breathing problems, mysterious skin rashes … the list goes on. The family dog died suddenly, after lapping up some water the family believes was problematic. The McIntyres no longer drink, brush their teeth, or do their laundry with the water piped into their home.

New Yorkers worried about fracking have been looking at the impact it's had on their neighbors in Pennsylvania. Increasingly, they don't like what they see there. After a fact-finding tour to the town of Troy, in northern Pennsylvania, Terry Gipson, a New York state senator, reported that, despite signs of renewed economic activity in the region, he couldn't help wonder what will happen when the gas boom goes bust, as all booms inevitably do. Gipson asks:

"Envision a time when the trucks are gone, the lease money is spent, the trailers and the diners are empty, and all that is left is unusable farm land with a contaminated water supply. What will these people do then?"

Many New Yorkers have been asking similar questions. Surveys show that support for hydraulic fracturing in the state is at an all-time low. In a poll released by Siena College in April, 45% of voters opposed fracking and 40% supported it (15% said they didn't yet know enough to decide). New Yorkers used to be evenly split on the issue. Interestingly, upstate New York, which tends to be conservative, politically, and which would presumably have the most to gain from allowing gas drilling, reported the highest levels of opposition to fracking: 50% want to see it stay out of the state. 

These sentiments have led to a groundswell of local rebellions against the gas companies. The Albany Times Union reports that there are already 55 separate municipal bans against fracking, and 105 moratoriums in the state. These local bans were challenged in court by the energy companies, who argued that the state alone has the regulatory authority to prohibit drilling. But earlier this month the state supreme court disagreed, ruling that the town of Dryden has the right to prohibit fracking within its borders.

This decision may turn out to be the nail in the coffin for fracking in New York state. If their investment can be rendered worthless by a local town council's vote, gas companies may now be reluctant to spend millions of dollars leasing drill sites.

But anti-fracking activists are not resting on their laurels quite yet, because Governor Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, has yet to decide whether to permit gas drilling. Cuomo has promised to announce his decision on a number of deadlines, but they've all come and gone without a definitive word. Touted as a potential presidential contender in 2016, the governor is understandably reluctant to step into this political minefield.  

Earlier reports indicated that the governor make a decision after New York's health commissioner gives his assessment on drilling, which is expected to be released in a matter of weeks. But the latest word from Cuomo's aides is that "there is no timetable for a decision". 

The state put in place a provisional moratorium on drilling in 2008. John Armstrong, of the coalition New Yorkers Against Fracking (NYAF), told me that ever since then, there has been a spontaneous groundswell of "hundreds of kitchen table organizations petitioning and holding public meetings to educate the public on the dangers of fracking".

One such group formed in Vestal, New York, a town just across the state line from Dimock, Pennsylvania, whose flaming taps in the movie Gasland made it a poster child for fracking gone bad. Sue Rapp, the co-founder of Vestal Residents for Safe Energy (VeRSE) has been tramping from door to door with a petition that calls for the town council to ban drilling. She said that many residents need little convincing, since they have seen homes in Pennsylvania with 500-gallon "water buffaloes" – plastic tankards full of drinking water sitting on their front lawns. She says that they've seen how property values plummet, banks revoke mortgages and natural landscapes are altered. Already, endless caravans of trucks barrel through their own town, kicking up dust as they head to Pennsylvania to service the gas industry.

Rapp told me that the recent court ruling has encouraged her, and she says it will free town boards from the fear that the gas companies will sue against any fracking bans. Now that this legal hurdle has been overcome, she expects that a lot more towns will soon vote to keep drillers at bay. Her organization is one of over 200 groups that make up NYAF, an eclectic alliance that includes health professionals, unions, faith institutions, farmers and even breweries.

Rapp is proud, she says, that the movement against drilling in New York grew from the bottom up rather than the top down. Mainline environmental groups were initially ambivalent, believing that natural gas is cleaner than coal, and that its use in America's power plants would lead to significant reductions in carbon dioxide emissions. Those reductions have occurred, but evidence has mounted that mining shale gas carries risks.

But Sue Rapp doesn't see this as an environmental movement so much as an existential quest to preserve a peaceful way of life in the rolling hills of New York's bucolic Southern Tier. Maybe that is why their grassroots campaign appears – for the moment at least – to be succeeding where so many other environmental crusades have failed to ignite the public's imagination.

• Shale gas and fracking
• United States
• New York
• Pennsylvania
• Energy
• Energy industry
• Andrew Cuomo

Richard Schiffman
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Newtok is losing ground to the sea at a dangerous rate. Unless its population can be relocated in time, an entire community will cease to exist and the villagers will become America's first climate refugees

Guardian US interactive teamGabriel DanceFeilding CageSuzanne GoldenbergRichard Sprenger

Have your say on the fate of native Alaskan communities under threat from climate change

The people of Newtok, on the west coast of Alaska and about 400 miles south of the Bering Strait that separates the state from Russia, are living a slow-motion disaster that will end, very possibly within the next five years, with the entire village being washed away.

The Ninglick River coils around Newtok on three sides before emptying into the Bering Sea. It has steadily been eating away at the land, carrying off 100ft or more some years, in a process moving at unusual speed because of climate change. Eventually all of the villagers will have to leave, becoming America's first climate change refugees.

It is not a label or a future embraced by people living in Newtok. Yup'ik Eskimo have been fishing and hunting by the shores of the Bering Sea for centuries and the villagers reject the notion they will now be forced to run in chaos from ancestral lands.

But exile is undeniable. A report by the US Army Corps of Engineers predicted that the highest point in the village – the school of Warner's nightmare – could be underwater by 2017. There was no possible way to protect the village in place, the report concluded.

If Newtok can not move its people to the new site in time, the village will disappear. A community of 350 people, nearly all related to some degree and all intimately connected to the land, will cease to exist, its inhabitants scattered to the villages and towns of western Alaska, Anchorage and beyond.

It's a choice confronting more than 180 native communities in Alaska, which are flooding and losing land because of the ice melt that is part of the changing climate.

In a special three part series on the imminent crisis, the Guardian has visited Newtok and spoken to the villagers, politicians and climate scientists about their plight. You can read about it here and have your say below.

• Alaska
• Polar regions
• Climate change
• United States
• Sea level
• Sea ice

Environment editor
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Jeff and Lisa Charles, who have six children, were allotted one of the first houses in Mertarvik as the sea advances on Newtok

Guardian US interactive teamSuzanne GoldenbergRichard SprengerGabriel DanceFeilding Cage

Rule changes are hardly the sort of joined-up thinking we need to promote rail travel over flying

Last week, Eurostar announced a revised cycle policy on its trains – the second change in six months. I'd fallen foul of the previous version when returning from Paris on the Eurostar a few weeks ago. Arriving at the barriers with my bike in its bag, which I'd taken by Eurostar many times before, I was told that it was now deemed too large to carry on, and I had to pay €29 to send it freight instead.

Afterwards, I spoke to Eurostar, who said the policy was being reviewed, but the newest bike policy is disappointing: only bikes in bags up to 85cm in length can be carried on, which means it's impossible to take a non-folding bike as carry-on luggage.

Instead, you must pay £10 (€15 on the continent) to "turn-up-and-go", and leave your bike bag at a counter in the check-in hall; you will then be reunited at Paris, Brussels or, I am told, Lille. That station is a trickier proposition for baggage since it's an intermediate stop, but it's also vital to connect to the best train services to the south of France.

Eurostar believes it will be able to meet demand, but it can't guarantee 100% the bike will travel on the same train as you – which seems pretty unfriendly for people taking onward connections. If you're not willing to run that (admittedly small) risk, you must book your bike in advance as registered baggage for £25. You can also wheel it to the freight depot, unbagged, for £25 (£30 to guarantee it on your train).

The Eurostar website doesn't explain any of this very well at the moment, but I'm assured that this is all how it works.

Eurostar bills itself as a convenient, pleasant alternative to air travel to Europe, and the previous carry-on service was just that. A bag within the regulations fitted neatly on to the luggage racks. Generally, outside of peak times there'd be plenty of space, but if the racks were full there was room to slide it in on top of everyone else's stuff.

It's always annoying to have to pay for something you used to get for free. But what was best about the previous system was that you could keep an eye on your bike the whole way, and didn't have to entrust it to baggage handlers - a massive advantage over air travel. I'd travelled more than 20 times over the past few years, taking my road bike to the south of France to sneak in rides around working at conferences, and my commuter bike to Paris, Amsterdam and Antwerp for work or for weekend breaks. Not once did I see a bike bag causing any inconvenience on the trains.

Eurostar's regulations on bike bags now places it out of step with all of the high-speed trains it connects with – hardly the sort of joined-up thinking we need to promote rail as the convenient, sustainable alternative to flying. (However, if you're lucky enough to be on a direct Eurostar to Provence or the Alps, you can still take a 120cm bike bag on board.)

It's a shame, and a complication for people travelling to cycle on the continent, be that for a sportive, a city break or touring holiday. I've spoken to several people who have already made alternative arrangements. One man travelling to the Étape had reluctantly booked a flight when it wasn't clear how he'd make his train trip; and a couple who were worried that their specially modified tandem (to take account of a disability) wouldn't be looked after by the freight service were taking a ferry instead.

Dave Holladay is an integrated transport specialist working with national cycling charity CTC and public transport operators on integrating cycling with public transport. He said:

"It's not an ideal solution but it is one we can work with. It is too early to judge whether the promise of getting the bags collected at check-in on to the same train as the passenger can be met, and I expect some fine tuning will be needed."

A Eurostar spokesperson I talked to said the problem wasn't bike bags specifically: with passenger numbers rising all the time, it was the sheer amount of luggage. The new restrictions are in fact part of a policy limiting general luggage to two items up to 85cm per person.

"It is important to balance the needs of all of our passengers and the changes we have made to our baggage policy have been designed to reduce the amount of oversized or excess baggage being taken on board. By doing so, we are able to continue to offer all passengers a generous and free individual luggage allowance while offering a number of options to those passengers who may have bulkier items of luggage."

So Eurostar is a victim of its own success. But cyclists have been a significant part of that, and it seems a shame their lives are being made more difficult.

There's no doubt there's a substantial market. In 2007, Holladay and CTC worked with Eurostar to introduce a booking system so passengers could take complete bikes with them to the continent – and demand shot up 1,000% in three years.

"Most rail operators seriously underestimate the potential for connecting cycling with rail travel," Holladay said.

In 2014 the German train company Deutsche Bahn will start running services through the Channel tunnel, to Amsterdam and Frankfurt via Brussels. Perhaps the competition will spur a further rethink.

• Eurostar
• Travel and transport
• Rail transport
• Transport
• Rail travel
• Rail transport
• Cycling
• Cycling holidays

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Root-cause environmental and energy factors sparking violence will continue to destabilise Arab world without urgent reforms

The civil war in Syria has been devastating, generating a death toll fast approaching 100,000, while uprooting millions of civilians from their homes.

But as the US and Russia signed an unprecedented accord on Wednesday in search of a political solution to an increasingly intractable conflict, its underlying causes in a fatal convergence of energy, climate and economic factors remain little understood.

The UN high commissioner for human rights has offered a conservative under-estimate of the death toll at about 70,000 people - accompanied by over 1 million Syrian refugees in neighbouring countries and more than 2 million people internally displaced. According to another independent study, about 79% of confirmed victims of violence in Syria have been civilians.

Although opposition fighters have been implicated in tremendous atrocities, international observers universally confirm the vast bulk of the increasingly sectarian violence to be the responsibility of Bashir al-Assad's regime.

Yet the conflict is fast taking on international dimensions, with unconfirmed allegations that rebel forces might have used chemical weapons following hot on the heels of US-backed Israeli air strikes on Syrian military targets last weekend.

But the US, Israel and other external powers are hardly honest brokers. Behind the facade of humanitarian concern, familiar interests are at stake. Three months ago, Iraq gave the greenlight for the signing of a framework agreement for construction of pipelines to transport natural gas from Iran's South Pars field - which it shares with Qatar - across Iraq, to Syria.

The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the pipelines was signed in July last year - just as Syria's civil war was spreading to Damascus and Aleppo - but the negotiations go back further to 2010. The pipeline, which could be extended to Lebanon and Europe, would potentially solidify Iran's position as a formidable global player.

The Iran-Iraq-Syria pipeline plan is a "direct slap in the face" to Qatar's plans for a countervailing pipeline running from Qatar's North field, contiguous with Iran's South Pars field, through Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and on to Turkey, also with a view to supply European markets.

The difference is that the pipeline would bypass Russia.

Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey have received covert support from Washington in the funneling of arms to the most virulent Islamist elements of the rebel movement, while Russia and Iran have supplied arms to Assad.

Israel also has a direct interest in countering the Iran-brokered pipeline. In 2003, just a month after the commencement of the Iraq War, US and Israeli government sources told The Guardian of plans to "build a pipeline to siphon oil from newly conquered Iraq to Israel" bypassing Syria.

The basis for the plan, known as the Haifa project, goes back to a 1975 MoU signed by then Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, "whereby the US would guarantee Israel's oil reserves and energy supply in times of crisis." As late as 2007, US and Israeli government officials were in discussion on costs and contingencies for the Iraq-Israel pipeline project.

Syria's dash for gas has been spurred by its rapidly declining oil revenues, driven by the peak of its conventional oil production in 1996. Even before the war, the country's rate of oil production had plummeted by nearly half, from a peak of just under 610,000 barrels per day (bpd) to approximately 385,000 bpd in 2010.

Since the war, production has dropped further still, once again by about half, as the rebels have taken control of key oil producing areas.

Faced with dwindling profits from oil exports and a fiscal deficit, the government was forced to slash fuel subsidies in May 2008 - which at the time consumed 15% of GDP. The price of petrol tripled overnight, fueling pressure on food prices.

The crunch came in the context of an intensifying and increasingly regular drought cycle linked to climate change. Between 2002 and 2008, the country's total water resources dropped by half through both overuse and waste.

Once self-sufficient in wheat, Syria has become increasingly dependent on increasingly costly grain imports, which rose by 1m tonnes in 2011-12, then rose again by nearly 30% to about 4m in 2012-13. The drought ravaged Syria's farmlands, led to several crop failures, and drove hundreds of thousands of people from predominantly Sunni rural areas into coastal cities traditionally dominated by the Alawite minority.

The exodus inflamed sectarian tensions rooted in Assad's longstanding favouritism of his Alawite sect – many members of which are relatives and tribal allies – over the Sunni majority.

Since 2001 in particular, Syrian politics was increasingly repressive even by regional standards, while Assad's focus on IMF-backed market reform escalated unemployment and inequality. The new economic policies undermined the rural Sunni poor while expanding the regime-linked private sector through a web of corrupt, government-backed joint ventures that empowered the Alawite military elite and a parasitic business aristocracy.

Then from 2010 to 2011, the price of wheat doubled - fueled by a combination of extreme weather events linked to climate change, oil price spikes and intensified speculation on food commodities - impacting on Syrian wheat imports. Assad's inability to maintain subsidies due to rapidly declining oil revenues worsened the situation.

The food price hikes triggered the protests that evolved into armed rebellion, in response to Assad's indiscriminate violence against demonstrators. The rural town of Dara'a, hit by five prior years of drought and water scarcity with little relief from the government, was a focal point for the 2011 protests.

The origins of Syria's 'war by proxy' are therefore unmistakeable - the result of converging climate, oil and debt crises within a politically repressive state, the conflict's future continues to be at the mercy of rival foreign geopolitical interests in dominating the energy corridors of the Middle East and North Africa.

But whoever wins this New Great Game, the Syrian people will end up losing.

As other oil exporters in the region approach production limits, and as climate change continues to wreak havoc in the world's food basket regions, policy makers should remember that without deep-seated transformation of the region's political and economic structures, Syria's plight today may well offer a taste of things to come.

Dr Nafeez Ahmed is director of the Institute for Policy Research & Development and author of A User's Guide to the Crisis of Civilisation: And How to Save It among other books. Follow him on Twitter @nafeezahmed

• Syria
• Peak oil
• Climate change
• Oil

Nafeez Ahmed
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Aerial footage shot above a frozen reservoir in Canada shows an ice floe surging for miles through the Codette reservoir

Gerroff, dad... family fun time for a pride of lions in Kruger national park, South Africa

Debate will decide on 40-year-old practice of throwing away edible fish to meet quotas

Crucial negotiations in Brussels in the next few days will decide one of the thorniest European environmental issues of the past four decades – the wasteful practice of throwing millions of healthy fish back into the sea each year after they have been caught, because of the way the EU's quotas are managed.

A ban on discards has gathered huge public backing since Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, the chef and food writer, made it a personal campaign more than two years ago, highlighting the waste of the EU's rapidly dwindling fish stocks. He has gathered the support of the UK fisheries minister, Richard Benyon, who will fight for the ban in an EU meeting starting on Monday.

This week's battle will be intense. For the opponents of a ban – including Spain, Portugal and industrial-scale fishing interests – this is the last chance to scupper proposals that would mean the biggest shakeup of the EU common fisheries policy since it was brought in four decades ago. Ministers from all member states are entering the final stage of more than two years of wearying negotiations and campaigners have warned that the outcome is still up for grabs.

Fearnley-Whittingstall, whose FishFight campaign has gathered more than 850,000 supporters, said that it was "crunch time" for the reforms that are needed to end the "crazy system". He said: "We need a strong discard ban and a legally enforceable commitment to restore fish stocks to sustainable levels. To any sane person, wasting half a million tonnes of fine edible fish every year is simply unacceptable."

A number of countries and MEPs want to keep the discards system because it allows their large fishing fleets to maximise profits. Fishermen discard parts of their catch when they have netted species for which they do not have a quota, because it leaves more room to take home the species they are after, or when they have exceeded their quota they often throw back smaller specimens. They also throw back lower-value species for which there is less commercial demand, such as gurnard.

All of these measures allow fishermen to maximise their profits, taking ashore only the most valuable section of their catch and throwing the rest away – even though the discarded fish are healthy and edible. Reform would mean they have to land the whole catch, which should help to stop the plunder of the EU's dwindling fish stocks. Fearnley-Whittingstall said: "The French and Spanish may have learned to profit from this crazy system down the years, but now it has to end. Kowtowing to their calls for compromise and threats of blocking reform is simply not an option."

Benyon said in an interview that he was determined to prevent backtracking on the reforms in the negotiating session, and that he was confident a "sensible" deal could be reached. "We are at a critical moment in the process, but I can't believe it is beyond the wit of us all to get something meaningful. There are undoubtedly people who speak the language of reform but try to avoid the reality. I am determined that any agreement will not go against our principles."

Benyon said British fishermen wanted a fair settlement that would ensure all member states followed strict rules on issues such as the number of days they could spend at sea and allow a fair share of the catch for countries fishing in the same waters. One aspect of this would be low quotas for key species such as North Sea cod and haddock.

In a pointed dig at campaigners for Scottish independence, he said Scottish fishermen could benefit from being part of one of the largest member states in the fisheries negotiations, instead of negotiating alone as a small state with less influence.

But he sounded a note of optimism that after more than two years of wrangling a victory was in sight. "There is so much momentum. There would be an outcry of unprecedented proportions if this hit the buffers."

If the reformers win the day, there could be a discards ban in place for many important species within a year, with the rest phased in over the next three to five years. Fishing rights would also have to be set according to scientific advice as to the "maximum sustainable yield".

This week's meeting is the culmination of two years of legislative procedures in Brussels, in which first one side and then the other seemed to have the upper hand. The proposals had to be developed by the European Commission and put to member states. When the member states that support a ban finally won a narrow victory over their opponents last year, the reforms were put to the vote by the European parliament. Although there was a substantialmajority in favour of the reforms, the finaloutcome stillhangs in the balance because the negotiations enter their final phase in a "trilogue" with the member states' ministers, commission and parliament.

• Fishing
• European Union
• Food
• Wildlife
• Animals
• Conservation
• Europe
• Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
• Marine life
• Spain

Fiona Harvey
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