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Royal Dutch Shell is pushing ahead with plans for the world's deepest offshore oil and gas production facility. It will be nearly two miles beneath the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of Louisiana. It is testing the bounds of the oil and gas industry's capability to drill ever deeper.

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The government is encouraging power stations to burn biomass in order to help lower carbon emissions. Leo Hickman, with your help, investigates.

Leo Hickman

The study blames intensive farming and urban sprawl which have decimated the flowery meadows that bees feed in

From the great yellow bumblebee in Scotland to the potter flower bee clinging on in a few sites on England's south coast, many of Britain's rarest wild bees are in deep trouble, according to a report published on Thursday. The study blames intensive farming and urban sprawl which have decimated the flowery meadows that bees feed in as the key factors.

"The way we farm and use land across the UK has pushed many rare bees into serious decline," said bee expert Prof Simon Potts, at the University of Reading, who led the study commissioned by Friends of the Earth. "I'm calling on the government to act swiftly to save these iconic creatures which are essential to a thriving environment and our food supply".

The report focused on12 key species across Britain. It found the great yellow bumblebee has disappeared from 80% of its historic UK range and now relies on the unique machair habitat in western Scotland, a flower-rich grassland. On the south coast of England, the range of the solitary potter flower bee, which digs burrows to lay eggs in, has also shrunk dramatically. Britain's rarest solitary bee, the large mason bee, is on the brink of extinction in Wales, the report found.

"The most pervasive causes of bee species decline are to be found in the way our countryside has changed in the past 60 years," Potts writes in the report. "Intensification of grazing regimes, an increase in pesticide use, loss of biodiverse field margins and hedgerows, the trend towards sterile monoculture, insensitive development and the sprawl of towns and cities are the main factors in this." While pesticide use is an issue, the two-year suspension of three neonicotinoid insecticides across the European Union agreed on 29 April will not reverse bee decline unless the other causes are also dealt with, the report warns.

"We need a bee action plan now," said Sandra Bell, at Friends of the Earth. "These bee species are in real trouble. But people across the UK can help change all that with simple practical actions and by urging their MPs to play their part." While a majority of EU nations backed the neonicotinoid ban, UK ministers opposed it.

Bees and other pollinators play a crucial role in food production, with three-quarters of global food crops relying on pollination. Britain has over 250 bee species, but numbers have fallen dramatically in recent years and 20 species have become extinct in the UK since 1900. Honeybees kept in hives have also suffered severe losses in recent decades, with pests and diseases such as the varroa mite adding to the problems of habitat loss and pesticide use.

Potts made a range of recommendations to reverse bee decline, including the promotion of sympathetic grazing regimes to ensure bees can feed until early autumn, encouraging farmers to sow wildflower margins in fields and setting quantitative targets for the reduction of all pesticide use. The latter measure was not done in the government's National Action Plan for the Sustainable Use of Pesticides, published in February, despite EU law demanding member states "establish timetables and targets for the reduction of pesticide use".

• Bees
• Wildlife
• Insects
• Farming
• Rural affairs

Damian Carrington
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Prince uses speech at St James's Palace to single out 'confirmed sceptics' and environmentally unfriendly businesses

The Prince of Wales has criticised "corporate lobbyists" and climate change sceptics for turning the earth into a "dying patient", in his most outspoken attack yet on the world's failure to tackle global warming, made shortly before he is to take over from the Queen at the forthcoming meeting of the Commonwealth.

His intervention was reinforced by Lord Stern of Brentford, author of the 2006 report on the economics of climate change, who called sceptics and lobbyists "forces of darkness" who would be "driven back".

Prince Charles attacked businesses who failed to care for the environment, and compared the current generation to a doctor taking care of a critically ill patient.

"If you think about the impact of climate change, [it should be how] a doctor would deal with the problem," he told an audience of government ministers, from the UK and abroad, as well as businesspeople and scientists. "A scientific hypothesis is tested to absolute destruction, but medicine can't wait. If a doctor sees a child with a fever, he can't wait for [endless] tests. He has to act on what is there."

He added: "The risk of delay is so enormous that we can't wait until we are absolutely sure the patient is dying."

His words were swiftly leapt on by climate sceptics. The Global Warming Policy Foundation, led by Lord Lawson, which opposes what it terms costly policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, said the heir to the throne was "out of touch with half the UK population".

Hosting a two-day conference for forest scientists at St James's Palace in London, Prince Charles – who is taking over from the Queen at this year's meeting of the Commonwealth in Sri Lanka – savagely satirised those who stand in the way of swift action on the climate.

He characterised them as "the confirmed sceptics" and "the international association of corporate lobbyists". Faced with these forces of opposition, "science finds itself up the proverbial double blind gum tree", he said.

Stern picked up on his comments, saying: "I think the forces of darkness can be driven back – the sceptics and corporate lobbyists can be driven back."

Others were supportive of the Prince's views. Mark Barry, head of sustainable business at Marks & Spencer, tweeted: "Prince Charles' attack on climate sceptics is significant. As he nears throne many expect him to back off – he isn't."

Ian Cheshire, the chief executive of the retail group Kingfisher, said some businesses were committed to strong action on climate change and greenhouse gas emissions, and could see the benefits of dealing with the issues.

Supporters of the Prince also said privately that he should be praised for taking a strong stance on such a key issue, and was using his "convening power" to draw attention to a crisis that is engulfing the planet and is not receiving sufficient attention from politicians.

But Benny Peiser, of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, said the Prince was "happy" for consumers to pay more in their energy bills for green policies, and accused him of using "apocalyptic language that a government minister would not use".

He said: "The US energy price is one third that of Europe, and European businesses are panicking [over measures intended to cut carbon] – Europe is becoming less and less competitive. Prince Charles has to address these concerns – there are real costs to be paid [for cutting emissions]."

The St James's Palace audience included Owen Paterson, the Tory secretary of state for the environment, said by some who know him to be sceptical of the scientific consensus on climate change, and who left climate change out of his speech and focused on other environmental issues such as biodiversity.

Ed Davey, the Lib Dem secretary of state for energy and climate, used his speech to the conference to draw a deep dividing line between his own party and the increasingly vocal section of the Tory right wing that is attacking policies that require tougher emissions targets and more money for the low-carbon economy. He said: "As a politician – particularly as a politician in a coalition – you quickly realise that compromise is a part of the game. But there are some issues where you have to draw the line – where you have to stand up and be counted, and you have to do the right thing. I think climate change is firmly in that category."

Prince Charles is no stranger to controversy, having spoken out on issues from organic farming and alternative medicine to architecture. But his words – warmly welcomed by the conference – were his strongest yet on climate change, an issue he has taken a deep interest in. He founded his working group on forests, whose conference he was addressing on Wednesday, in 2007, and also lends his name to a group of businesses, the Corporate Leaders' Group, which supports corporate action on cutting greenhouse emissions. He has also written to government ministers on the subject of climate change.

In his speech, Prince Charles praised countries such as Brazil, which has taken a lead on reducing deforestation, and Norway, which is offering billions of dollars to developing nations to protect their forests.

The scientists at the Prince's forum endorsed a call for much greater investment on "big science, which supports the integration and expansion of global tropical forest monitoring networks" and "enhanced research" into the resilience of forests. About a billion people all over the world depend on forests for their livelihoods, and although the rate of deforestation has slowed in countries such as Brazil, it is accelerating over swathes of south-east Asia and Africa.

• Climate change scepticism
• Prince Charles
• Climate change
• Climate change
• Trees and forests
• Deforestation
• Conservation

Fiona Harvey
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Citizen science survey to monitor threats such as oak processionary moth and ash dieback disease

Members of the public are being asked to spot the "six most unwanted" pests and diseases threatening UK trees, as part of a citizen science survey starting on Thursday.

Recent outbreaks of the oak processionary moth and ash dieback disease have added to the increasing number of pests and diseases that have been attacking trees in the past few years, leading to a decline in tree health and in some cases tree loss.

In order to manage the threat, Open Air Laboratories (Opal) researchers, together with experts from the Food and Environment Research Agency (Fera) and Forest Research, are asking the public to get involved in their national tree health survey which runs from May to September when trees are in leaf.

Survey activities include identifying trees, measuring their girth and height, examining the trunk, branches and leaves for signs of poor health and recording the presence of pests and diseases.

The survey includes a guide to six of the most unwanted pests and diseases that could spell disaster for trees and forests if they spread across the UK, such as Chalara dieback of ash (Chalara fraxinea) and pests like the oak processionary moth (Thaumetopoea processionea).

The findings will contribute to a national research programme that is investigating the health of Britain's trees and the spread of pests and diseases.

Joan Webber, principal pathologist at Forest Research, said: "Input from across Great Britain will help us to develop a comprehensive picture of tree health and contribute to the database of information that we are building."

Last week the Forestry Commission urged the public to help stop the spread of the oak processionary moth that devastates oak trees and whose caterpillars can cause serious health problems. A native of southern and central Europe, the species has become established in south-west London and parts of the home counties since being found in England in 2006. The commission is planning to use a helicopter to blanket-spray woodland with insecticide.

Britain's 80 million ash trees remain at deadly risk from ash dieback caused by Chalara fraxinea, a virulent fungal disease that has swept across Europe. Scientists have successfully unravelled the genetic code of the fungus that causes the disease, which causes the crown of the tree to die back and leaves to turn brown. Latest figures from the Forestry Commission reported a total of 490 sightings in nurseries, plantations and established woodland around the UK.

More than half a million people have joined the Open Air Laboratories (Opal) citizen science project, designed to get people outdoors and involved in scientific research, since its launch in 2007.

Six most unwanted

Pests and diseases that could have a serious impact on the UK's trees

Asian longhorn beetle (Anoplophora glabripennis)

Not yet established in the UK, but would be a major threat to a wide range of broadleaved trees. Beetles are black and shiny with long antennae. Larvae tunnel internally through trunks and branches. A major outbreak in Kent in 2012 saw 2,000 trees felled.

Citrus longhorn beetle (Anoplophora chinensis)

Black with variable markings and long antennae, looks like the Asian longhorn. Not present in the UK, but a few that reached the UK on trees imported from China, Japan and South Korea were intercepted before reaching the wider environment. Would cause a major threat to broadleaved trees.

Chalara dieback of ash (Chalara fraxinea)

Limited distribution in the UK since being found in 2012 but has already infected large numbers of ash trees across Europe. Affected trees have diseased leaves, trunk lesions and thinning crowns.

Emerald ash borer (Agrilus planipennis)

Metallic green beetle with burrowing larvae that causes thinning and yellowing of foliage and fissures in the bark. Not present in the UK, but the increase in the global movement of wood and wood packaging poses a significant risk of its accidental introduction. Affects ash trees.

Oak processionary moth (Thaumetopoea processionea)

First found in oak trees imported from continental Europe in west and south-west London in 2006. By July 2012, it had been found in south London and Berkshire. The caterpillars march in nose-to-tail processions when feeding and can strip trees bare. They are covered in toxic hairs that can lead to skin irritation and allergic reactions.

Pine processionary moth (Thaumetopoea pityocampa)

Caterpillars have orange brown backs with blueish-grey bands and build nests that form white silken clumps near the tops of pine trees. Since the 1990s the pest has been moving north through France and is now breeding near Paris; it could spread to the UK. Also covered in toxic irritating hairs.

• You can download or request your free survey pack, including tree identification guide, field notebook, field guide and "six most unwanted" card from OPALexplorenature.org

• Trees and forests
• Conservation
• Ash dieback
• Invasive species
• Insects
• Animals
• Wildlife

Jessica Aldred
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Shaun Kingsbury says bank's scope must be expanded to bring forward renewable energy and environmental projects across UK

The chief of the UK's £3bn green investment bank is preparing to move the bank to borrowing and raising debt, in order to vastly expand its scope in bringing forward renewable energy and other environmental projects across the country.

The move would be a sharp break with the current set-up of the bank, which on Thursday published data for the first time on its initial investments totalling £635m. It receives money from the Treasury in order to fund green projects, but is not allowed to raise money on the capital markets, in the way normal banks do to fund their investments.

When the Green investment bank (GIB) was launched last year, the Treasury insisted that it should not be allowed to borrow independently, because its debt would appear on the government's balance sheet and could – on paper – make it look as if the deficit was increasing.

But the bank's set-up will be reviewed when its current funding is scheduled to run out, in March 2015. Shaun Kingsbury, chief executive of the GIB, told the Guardian that it was imperative for him to prepare now for the possibility of being able to borrow money in less than two years' time, which he strongly supports as a way of expanding the bank's impacts.

"Access to debt markets will come. If I can deliver on all this [current investments] I will have access to all sorts of capital… As the story emerges, we will look at different sources of capital," said Kingsbury, adding that in order to prepare for that he was already working on models of how the bank in its new format could work. "I am working on these kinds of things now."

Kingsbury said moving the bank to a more commercial basis was necessary to allow it to grow and be effective. "People focus on our [current] budget as if that is the end. But the government has committed to an enduring institution. For me the key was to get established. We will become a valuable, profitable business, and I will have access to all sorts of capital if successful."

However, Kingsbury is likely to face some opposition. Treasury mandarins, who firmly – and controversially – prevented the bank from having borrowing powers, may balk at allowing such a major change so soon, and ahead of the next general election.

Kingsbury said the bank was already proving itself. "It was agreed that we would not have access to capital markets at the beginning," he said. "But £3bn is plenty to demonstrate that we can deliver. That is what we are focused on now. But beyond that we may have access to different types of capital. The key is to build a successful business – that business will have capital formation around its business model."

"We will be able to borrow money at some point in the future – the date is not certain yet," he said.

On Thursday morning, the bank published data on the progress of its first five months of investments, from the launch in November to 31 March 2013. So far, the GIB has directly provided £635m of investment, in 11 transactions that have a total value of £2.3bn, with the rest coming from the private sector. Kingsbury said this ratio of GIB to private funds – £1 of public cash to about £3 of private investment – was what he had been seeking. "We are crowding in private sector capital, not crowding it out," he said.

The investments so far have included two offshore windfarms, three industrial energy-efficiency projects, and – more controversially – five waste or biomass projects, including one to help the UK's biggest coal-fired power station, Drax, to convert some of its coal boilers to wood and other biological materials.

Last week, green campaigners including Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and the RSPB sparked a bitter row in the renewable energy sector when they publicly condemned biomass projects, which they said could result in an unsustainable use of wood. The Renewable Energy Association rebuffed the claims and said the biomass used in the UK was from sustainable sources. Many green campaigners are also against projects to generate energy from waste, even though this cuts carbon emissions.

Kingsbury said Drax qualified for the £100m investment despite its size because the project would not have gone ahead without it. None of the projects invested in would have been possible without public money, he said, because commercial banks are facing increasing constraints on providing funding for long-term projects of as much as 25 years, partly because of investor nervousness but also because of international banking rules.

"Banks are struggling to provide long-dated capital [that pays back over more than 10 years]," he explained. "Folks are nervous about providing 20-year dated capital."

He said investment in renewable energy in the UK had also been hit by uncertainty over the reforms to the electricity market proposed by the government, which are in a bill currently going through parliament, but key details of which – such as the level of subsidies – have yet to be fully decided.

• Green investment bank
• Renewable energy
• Energy
• Wind power
• Biomass and bioenergy
• Energy efficiency
• Climate change
• Banking
• Energy industry
• Waste

Fiona Harvey
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Thanks to those of you who sent cards and letters to Michael.  He really got a kick out of hearing from my blog readers during his last weeks. He was a Marine who lived his life by the slogan he learned in boot camp... Semper Fidelis / Always Faithful

1 Peter 1: 3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, 5 Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

Energy companies, banks and trading houses cease co-operating with PRAs after allegations of price manipulation

Major energy companies, banks and trading houses have stopped providing information to the price reporting agencies (PRAs) whose indices have underpinned the wholesale and in turn the retail gas market.

The moves follows an investigation by the Guardian into alleged manipulation of energy trading, which has triggered an inquiry by the City and energy regulators.

Officials at the Norwegian state-owned gas company, Statoil, plus several banks and two top Swiss-based commodity trading houses have told the Financial Times that they have ceased co-operating with three PRAs, Platts, Argus and Icis Heren.

The PRAs were never accused of price manipulation themselves, but their reporting methods have been under question in both the UK and Europe.

Fears were raised by an Icis Heren reporter and whistleblower, Seth Freedman, that unscrupulous traders could submit false data to the PRAs. Both trading irregularities and the PRAs' methodology are currently being looked at by regulators.

Independent analysts told the FT that if major players declined to cooperate with the PRAs, then the price indices on which some multi-billion-pound contracts are based could be even more unreliable than they already are.

Huge gyrations in reported prices on 28 September last year raised fears that it could represent market manipulation similar to Libor interest-rate rigging, a scandal that has undermined the financial markets and led to fines of £290m for Barclays and £390m for Royal Bank of Scotland.

The prices reported by agencies such as ICIS form the basis for long-term contracts, and one explanation for the 28 September price movements is that traders stood to benefit by manipulating the benchmark price.

In a letter responding to a consultation exercise launched by ICIS, published on its website last month, Statoil UK's regulatory affairs adviser, Shelley Rouse, said the current price reporting methodology should be amended to improve the transparency and reliability of the calculations and the pricing indices. "We are concerned that the current methodology allows for the potential use of incorrectly reported trades to be factored into the index calculations, which can result in inaccurate prices being published," she wrote.

"Statoil would support the use of a daily weighted average of reported physical trades. This will enable the published pricing indices to fully reflect the traded market and would reduce the opportunity for gaming or market manipulation."

As part of the same exercise, another of the world's most powerful energy companies, RWE of Germany, said it too "may not always have full confidence in the accuracy of their [reporter-led] price assessments".

Centrica, the owner of British Gas, also expressed positive views about basing prices on deals done through exchanges rather than on the over-the-counter (OTC) market.

ICIS, owned by Reed Business Systems, has now promised to set up an alternative system of price reporting based only on actual executed trades, which will run alongside its current system. In a statement signed by Louise Boddy, head of gas and power at ICIS Heren, she admitted that her company needed to address these concerns. "Responses to this consultation do show consensus that a deals-based closing index methodology would provide a reliable measure of closing market value. ICIS will therefore develop a new pricing methodology to provide this," she said.

Freedman was critical of the methodology used by ICIS, alleging among other things that his fellow reporters were not trained properly. He was subsequently sacked and has launched an unfair dismissal case.

Concerns about how all price reporting agencies conduct their business have also led to calls for changes from the International Organisation of Securities Commissions. This comes amid a trend for long-term wholesale contract prices to be linked to OTC gas prices established by companies such as ICIS and Platts rather than oil prices, as usually happened in the past.

But the OTC market, estimated to be worth around £300bn annually, is largely unregulated, and prices are hard to establish because the price reporters often have to rely on talking to only one party in any deal.

In February, three major brokers launched their own set of indices covering the UK and Europe based on confirmed transactions. The "Tankard" benchmarks have been created by ICAP, Marex Spectron and Tullet Prebon.

• Energy industry
• Gas
• Commodities
• Banking

Terry Macalister
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From Bob Ross in a flat container garden

Bob Ross gave a great class at our April potluck and we wanted to share it online. He has a weekly radio show on KSFR called Gardens, Food, and Santa Fe at 10am on Saturdays and opened a new container garden store in the Farmers Market building called Gardens. Customers can learn to create their own with his classes or have one designed one for them. While the primary focus is decorative he will help create food gardens. His inspiration came from gardeners around the country, including Flora Grubb from her location in San Francisco.

Beautiful, Bountiful & Easy By Bob Ross at rwrlink@gmail.com or 501-2740

A container garden is a space with beautiful plants that drains well, has great plant selections and is in a lovely container for your space. It can be indoors or outdoors.

Seven Tips for Successful Container Gardens
1. Select the best containers for you
2. Create good drainage
3. Use the best planting mix without fertilizer (MetroMix 702 with Green Moss)
4. Be thoughtful with the plant selection and experiment
5. Manage your container placement
6. Feed your container gardens (MaxSea seeweed)
7. Maintain your creation

Thrill, Fill & Spill

Typically, but not always, container garden plant arrangements are planned around three design concepts: thrill, fill and spill. The thrill provides height, fill are middle height plants, usually full and often billowy and the spill specimens spread out and trail over the side of the container.

A few of the 2013 Container Plant Favorites

Bouvardia ternifolia
Japonica Striped Maize (plant 6″ apart for full color)
‘Blonde Ambition’ Blue Grama Grass
Allium fistulosum ‘Nabechan’
Goodwin Creek Lavender
Nasturtium
Gaura ‘Pink Cloud’
Calamagrostis actuflora ‘Karl Forerster’ Grass
Melianthus major ‘Purple Haze’

Dependable Co-Stars

Artemesia ‘Brocade’
Dichrondra ‘Emerald Falls’
Wire Vine
Purple, White & Pink Trailing Petunia
Gaillardia ‘Arizona Apricot’
Heuchera
Coleus
Agastache

Company will drill almost two miles underwater in Gulf of Mexico as part of next generation of deep-water developments

Royal Dutch Shell is pressing ahead with the world's deepest offshore oil and gas production facility by drilling almost two miles underwater in the politically sensitive Gulf of Mexico.

The move is being viewed in the oil industry as a demonstration of Shell's confidence that its technology can deliver returns on expensive and risky offshore projects, despite a recent downturn in oil prices.

It comes a day after ExxonMobil said it would start work on a $4bn (£2.6bn) project to develop the Julia oilfield, also in the North American ocean basin, and weeks after BP delayed development of its biggest Gulf of Mexico project – Mad Dog Phase 2 – citing rising costs.

John Hollowell, a Shell executive vice-president, said: "This important investment demonstrates our ongoing commitment to usher in the next generation of deepwater developments, which will deliver more production growth in the Americas. We will continue our leadership in safe, innovative deepwater operations to help meet the growing demand for energy in the US."

The move comes despite ongoing controversy over offshore exploration – especially in the Gulf of Mexico, where in April 2010 a fire and explosion on the BP Deepwater Horizon rig killed 11 workers and started a leak that took three months to cap. Last month BP said it had paid $25bn (£16bn) of the $42bn it has set aside to cover the damage caused by the spill.

Shell's Gulf of Mexico field, called Stones, was discovered eight years ago 200 miles south-west of New Orleans and is 2,900 metres (9,500ft) below the sea. Perdido, another Shell site in the region, is currently the world's deepest offshore well at 2,880 metres below the surface. Meanwhile the company has several other projects nearby, including its 900 metre-deep Mars field, where it is adding new infrastructure, plus its Appomattox and Vito discoveries.

This first phase of the latest project is expected to have annual peak production of 50,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, from more than 250m barrels of recoverable resources.

Shell added that the whole field has "significant upside potential" and is estimated to contain more than 2bn barrels.

Royal Dutch Shell shares added 20.5p to close at 2242.5p. Last week the company's chief executive, Peter Voser, unexpectedly announced plans to stand down less than four years into the job as Shell unveiled a 4% increase in first-quarter profits.

• Royal Dutch Shell
• Oil
• Oil
• Oil and gas companies
• Energy
• Fossil fuels
• Americas

Simon Goodley
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Wolsingham, Weardale: Part of the flower's charm is that it has endured for four decades in such an inhospitable spot

We first encountered yellow star of Bethlehem along this riverbank on a late March morning almost 40 years ago, when we found a single flowering specimen. It was so unfamiliar then that I thought it must be a garden escape, only realising it was a scarce native after consulting wildflower guides.

Best appreciated on hands and knees, this flower is little more than a few short, thick grass-like leaves and a 10cm-tall umbel of small yellow flowers that usually open at the same time as the lesser celandines. Individual plants don't bloom every year and, when they do, each flower remains green until the petals briefly turn yellow and face the sky for a day or two before fading.

Luck plays a large part in finding it, but we've searched this same place every spring and have usually located a plant or two. Last year – an early spring – we found it on 15 April, but by then that single inflorescence had already run to seed. It is a measure of the lateness of this year's season that we finally discovered two plants struggling into flower on the penultimate day of April, so blooming must have been delayed by about a month compared with last year.

Part of the charm of these tenacious little survivors is that they have endured for four decades in such an inhospitable spot, inundated by the river Wear's floods in winter and annually buried under sandy silt. By now they will be almost impossible to find, hidden in the shade of expanding leaves of the surrounding sweet cicely, ground elder and ramsons.

In a month they will have withered back to underground bulbs for another year. But for a moment their fugitive beauty brought particular pleasure with the knowledge that, for another year at least, all was well in this particular corner of our local patch after the longest winter we can recall.

• Rural affairs
• Plants

Phil Gates
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Letter urges natural resources minister Joe Oliver to consider consequences of his support for controversial policy

The Canadian government's promotion of the tar sands industry is setting the world on a course of catastrophic climate change, a group of climate scientists and economists have warned.

In a letter made available to the Guardian, the academics urged Canada's natural resources minister, Joe Oliver, to consider the consequences of his support for expanding Alberta's tar sands production.

Oliver has in recent months emerged as the main proponent for the Keystone XL pipeline in Washington and other capitals. He is due in London this week.

The project would pump crude from the tar sands directly to refineries on the Texas Gulf coast, and so provide a much-needed outlet for Canada's crude.

But the academics warned that unlocking Alberta's tar sands, which are thought to hold some 170bn barrels of recoverable oil, would put a dangerous amount of carbon into the atmosphere.

Production from the tar sands causes higher greenhouse gas emissions than conventional crude oils.

The academics said that expanding the tar sands ran in the face of recommendations from the International Energy Agency and others that two-thirds of the world's fossil fuel reserves should not be commercialised – in order to avoid catastrophic climate change.

"The implication is clear: the responsibility for preventing dangerous climate change rests with today's policymakers," the letter said.

"We are not convinced that your advocacy in support of new pipelines and expanded fossil fuel production takes climate change into account in a meaningful way," the academics went on.

Oliver, along with other Canadian officials, has made repeated visits to Washington and other US cities in recent months in an effort to ensure the Obama administration signs off the Keystone XL pipeline project, which would provide an important outlet for crude from Alberta's tar sands.

The minister has also made a reputation for his combative approach to opponents of tar sands development.

He has publicly scolded the Nasa scientist, James Hansen, for his opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline, and dismissed Canadian critics of the tar sands as "radicals".

At the same time, however, Oliver has publicly claimed to be concerned about climate change. He told an audience in Washington last month that developing the tar sands and the Keystone XL pipeline would increase greenhouse gas emissions by only a negligible amount.

But the academics in their letter said the policies promoted by Oliver, and Canada's prime minister, Stephen Harper, did not appear aimed at limiting greenhouse gas emissions, and so avoiding the worst effects of climate change. "It is this very dangerous pathway – not the '450 scenario [parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere]' linked to avoiding 2C of global warming – that you seem to be advocating when promoting Canadian fossil fuel development at home and abroad," the scientists said.

• Oil sands
• Canada
• Carbon emissions
• Climate change
• Keystone XL pipeline
• Oil
• United States

Suzanne Goldenberg
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Survey shows heavy loss of pollinators is further evidence of mysterious disorder that has destroyed colonies for seven years

Nearly a third of managed honeybee colonies in America died out or disappeared over the winter, an annual survey found on Wednesday. The decline – which was far worse than the winter before – threatens the survival of some bee colonies.

The heavy losses of pollinators also threatens the country's food supply, researchers said. The US Department of Agriculture has estimated that honeybees contribute some $20bn to the economy every year.

Bee keepers lost 31% of their colonies in late 2012 and through the early months of this year – about double what they might expect through natural causes, survey found. The survey offered the latest evidence of a mysterious disorder that has been destroying bee colonies for seven years. The strange phenomenon known as colony collapse disorder came to light in 2006, when the first reports came in of bees abandoning their hives and disappearing.

In a report last week, the federal government blamed a combination of factors for the rapid decline of honeybees, including a parasitic mite, viruses, bacteria, poor nutrition and genetics, as well as the effects of pesticides. But scientists and campaign groups have singled out the use of a widely used class of pesticides, which scramble the honeybees' sense of navigation.

The European Union has imposed a two-year ban on such pesticides, known as neonicotinoids, to study their effects on bee populations. However, the US authorities say there is no clear evidence pointing to pesticides as the main culprit for honeybees' decline.

The annual honeybee survey, which is a joint effort by beekeepers, academic researchers and scientists at the US Department of Agriculture, noted that bee keepers reported devastating losses over the winter months. More than two-thirds of bee keepers reported bigger losses than would allow them to remain in operation. The bee keepers who were affected by the disorder typically lost about 45% of their colonies, the survey found.

The honeybee shortage is already threatening agricultural production. Earlier this year, farmers in California reported that they nearly missed pollinating their almond crop, because of an absence of bees.

Nearly 6,300 commercial bee keepers, managing close to a quarter of colonies in the country, participated in the survey.

• Bees
• Wildlife
• Conservation
• Food
• Pesticides
• United States

Suzanne Goldenberg
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Jeremy Leggett among 100 signatories to letter opposing oil firm's likely influence over university's climate change studies

The veteran environmental campaigners Jonathon Porritt and Jeremy Leggett are among 100 past and present students and staff who are accusing Oxford University of hypocrisy for accepting funding from Shell for a new Earth sciences laboratory.

In a letter published in the Guardian on Thursday, the group maintains that Shell is a "particularly inappropriate choice of funder for an Earth sciences laboratory".

They point out that the Anglo-Dutch company's core business of oil production is in conflict with research produced by university scientists on the causes and effects of climate change.

"As Oxford alumni, staff and students, we are united in our opposition to this new partnership and the growing trend of oil companies funding, and thus influencing, the research agenda of our universities," the signatories write.

They add: "Oxford's own climate scientists are warning us that we need to leave the majority of known fossil fuels in the ground, and yet this new partnership will undertake research that will help Shell to find and extract even more hydrocarbons."

Among the signatories are Edward Mortimer, the former director of communications to the UN secretary general, and an alumnus of Balliol college. The list also includes George Monbiot, the Guardian columnist and activist, who attended Brasenose college.

The Shell Geoscience Laboratory is being officially opened at an event on Thursday and will be attended by the secretary of state for energy and climate change, Ed Davey. The university's department of Earth sciences already accepts funding from Shell for research doctorates in geochemistry.

• University of Oxford
• Royal Dutch Shell
• Oil
• Fossil fuels
• Earth and marine sciences
• Oxford
• Climate change
• Activism

Jeremy LeggettJonathon PorrittRichard Adams
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The fracking company has announced plans to drill a 3,000ft exploratory well in Balcombe amid strong local opposition

The first exploration well for shale gas in the home counties will be drilled this summer, fracking company Cuadrilla announced on Wednesday. Cuadrilla has already faced protests at its site in Lancashire, where its drilling caused a small earthquake, and beginning operations at Balcombe in Sussex is set to be a stern test of its ability to work in the face of community opposition.

Cuadrilla said it would drill a 3,000 foot well, which could be extended horizontally underground by 2,500ft. If oil or gas is discovered, it would be allowed to flow for a short time. But no fracking would take place, the company said, the process in which high-pressure water fractures rock to release trapped gas.

"We're fully aware that local people will have many questions about our plans and we'll do our best to answer all of them," said Francis Egan, Cuadrilla's chief executive. "During the coming months, we will discuss our plans with residents and they will be able to visit the site to see for themselves what our work involves." The drilling will take four months, according to the company.

Vanessa Vine, who lives four miles from the Balcombe site and is the founder of the Frack Free Sussex campaign group, said: "They have underestimated the local resistance. They will have a big fight one their hands." She said: "Fracking threatens to contaminate our water and our air, and the roads are not suitable for the tankers. We do not need to take more fossil fuels out of the ground – we need to invest in clean renewable technology."

The energy minister, Michael Fallon, speaking at a gas industry event on Wednesday, said: "On shale gas development, we believe it is important that we do not hold back unnecessarily – we need to build momentum. We need to move forward to enable the necessary exploration and prove the potential, while ensuring that the activity is safe and the environment is properly protected." He said producing shale gas in the UK offered significant benefits to the nation's economy, to employment and to energy security.

Fallon added: "We are working on a scheme for community benefits. It ensures that communities that accept shale production enjoy benefits, either in cheaper energy bills, or direct local benefit."

Cuadrilla wrote to ministers in November 2012 suggesting a part of shale gas tax revenues should be given to local residents.

Cuadrilla made the Sussex announcement just before anti-fracking activists in the area and beyond set off to a protest camp in Lancashire. The company said: "West Sussex has a history of oil exploration and production. In 1986, energy company Conoco drilled an exploration well on the same site that Cuadrilla will use. According to Decc's records, more than 50 oil and gas wells have already been drilled in the county."

Planning permission to drill the exploration well was granted in 2010, but the decision to proceed came on Wednesday after Cuadrilla informed Balcombe Parish Council, West Sussex County Council and the Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc) that it intended to go ahead.

After a crowded community meeting in Balcombe in 2012, at which Cuadrilla executive were repeatedly attacked, Paul Kelly, from Cuadrilla's public relations firm PPS told the Guardian. "This is how they burn witches I guess. I can think of dozens of oil companies who wouldn't put themselves through this in a million years and maybe they have it right."

• Shale gas and fracking
• Energy
• Fossil fuels
• Gas

Damian Carrington
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Climate change is already creating new winners among Europe's winemaking regions. (Great bubbly from Britain — who knew?) But those changes have also put in doubt the rules and traditions that have defined the continent's top winemakers for centuries.

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Study suggests decline of Arctic fox population in the 1970s likely due to mercury pollution in seabirds, not infectious disease

In the 1970s, a population of Arctic foxes on an island in the Bering Sea began to mysteriously decline. The animals were thin and mangy, and nearly all the cubs died. Today, only about 100 foxes remain.

The animals were not felled by an infectious disease, a PLOS ONE study suggests. Instead, the foxes probably suffered from high mercury exposure as a result of eating seabirds and other marine animals.

The researchers studied Arctic fox fur samples from four sources: Mednyi Island, where the population crashed; museum specimens of foxes from the Commander Islands; and two populations in Iceland. Three of the groups, including the Mednyi Island population, ate marine animals, while the fourth group mostly preyed on land animals such as mice.

Mercury levels in foxes with marine diets were almost three times higher than in foxes with an inland diet, the team found. The Mednyi Island foxes rely exclusively on marine animals for food, whereas the other two coastal groups eat land animals as well.

The team also tested the Mednyi Island foxes' blood, skin, and feces for signs of dangerous infections. But most tests came back negative, suggesting that pathogens weren't responsible for the population's collapse.

• Source: Bocharova, N. et al. 2013. Correlates between feeding ecology and mercury levels in historical and modern arctic foxes (Vulpes lagopus). PLOS ONE doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0060879.

• Wildlife
• Conservation
• Pollution
• Marine life
• Arctic

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The week's top environment news stories and green events

• If you're not already receiving this roundup, sign up here to get the briefing delivered to your inbox

Environment news

• Pest caterpillars face helicopter blitz with insecticide
• Ed Davey hits out against coalition climate change sceptics
• Arctic faces further threat from ocean acidification
• Billions of cicadas to invade US east coast after 17 years underground
• Renewable energy firms accuse activists of scaremongering over biomass

On the blogs

• John Abraham: This isn't the weather we grew up with
• Wildlife forced out of California 'salad bowl' by food safety regulations
• India acts to save Asiatic lion by moving it – but hard work has only just begun
• Revealed: Germany's secret bid to kill ban on bee-harming pesticides
• Is China really a climate change leader?

Multimedia

• Delayed Spring – your best pictures
• SeaOrbiter: the spaceship orbiting the Blue Planet – interactive
• The week in wildlife – in pictures
• Impact of deforestation on wildlife in the greater Mekong - in pictures

Features

• Guadeloupe and Martinique threatened as pesticide contaminates food chain
• Brittany villages blazing a trail in energy self-sufficiency
• Are electric vans green?
• Paris shopping centre opens green roof as French cities make room for nature

Best of the web

• Over half the world's population could rely on food imports by 2050 – study
• World's rarest duck on the rebound in Madagascar
• UK nuclear power plans are 'Soviet', says EU energy commissioner

Jobs

• Small & Medium Wind Development Manager at RenewableUK, London, Competitve Salary
• Disaster Risk Reduction Adviser at British Red Cross, London, with some overseas travel, £35,000 p.a. inc ILW
• Climate and Energy Policy Officer at WWF, Edinburgh (initially Dunkeld), £34,345 - £38,412

... And finally

• Kevin McCloud: 'I am a big fan of composting toilets'
Grand Designs' green-minded presenter enthuses over toilets, mending, and his expanding trousers

Environment editor
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A selection of the best images of delayed spring submitted via GuardianWitness

Rachel ObordoGuardian readers

Energy and climate change secretary will use a major speech at Clarence House to promise stronger action on global warming

Ed Davey, the energy and climate change secretary, is to use a major speech at Clarence House on Wednesday afternoon to fight back against the increasingly vocal climate change scepticism among other parts of the coalition.

His uncompromising speech, seen by the Guardian, promises stronger action on global warming and follows the admission by his party leader, Nick Clegg, that green issues are now some of the most serious flashpoints between the coalition partners. The Liberal Democrats have long sought to be seen as strong on the environment, a core issue for the party's voters. But they have suffered setbacks in government as the Treasury has cut renewable energy support and an increasingly vocal number of Tories oppose windfarms, money for low-carbon projects and tougher targets for UK emissions cuts, all of which the Lib Dems support.

The extent of some of the divisions was on display in the European parliament recently, when rebel Tory MEPs played a pivotal role in scuppering plans to rescue the EU's carbon trading system (ETS).

Davey struck a firm stance: "As a politician, you quickly realise that compromise is a part of the game. But there are some issues where you have to draw the line – where you have to stand up and be counted, and you have to do the right thing. I think climate change is firmly in that category."

He quoted David Cameron as saying "we can't afford not to" act on the problem.

Davey was speaking to a conference on preserving tropical forests, an area where progress has been disappointing despite deforestation being one of the leading sources of carbon emissions. The conference was convened by the Prince of Wales, who has set up a working group to find ways of funding forest protection.

Davey pinned his hopes on a global deal to cut greenhouse gas emissions, through United Nations negotiations that are proceeding at a glacial pace, although governments have agreed to write a new agreement by 2015 that would come into force from 2020. "The bottom line is climate change can only be addressed through an international response to reduce emissions."

He also addressed the tricky issue of the future of carbon trading. Davey and allies including France and Germany suffered a serious setback a few weeks ago when the European parliament – aided by most of the UK's Tory MEPS, who defied the official party line – voted against reforms that would have rescued the EU's emissions trading system. Although the CBI supported the reforms, there was heavy lobbying from other EU business groups to reject the reforms, that would have helped to prop up the price of carbon dioxide permits to businesses.

Davey vowed to fight on for reforms to strengthen the troubled system, in which the price of carbon dioxide permits has fallen to record lows, giving companies almost no incentive to reduce their emissions.

"The UK was one of nine member states to announce in a joint statement this week that we want the EU ETS to be reformed so it sends the right price signals to properly stimulate low-carbon investment," he said.

In a side swipe at the business interests that helped to scupper EU ETS reform and that have opposed spending on the low-carbon economy in the UK, Davey pledged: "Across multiple fronts, the UK is mounting a strong, concerted effort to unite and find common ground. Because we cannot gamble our future on vested interest and short-term gain. The stakes are too high."

• Climate change scepticism
• Climate change
• Climate change
• Ed Davey
• Green politics
• Carbon emissions
• Emissions trading

Fiona Harvey
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