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The fuel could become a 'new North Sea' energy business, and create more than 70,000 jobs, according to a new report

Investments in shale gas drilling could yield an industry worth nearly £4bn a year to the UK economy and create more than 70,000 jobs, according to a new report from the Institute of Directors (IoD), becoming a "new North Sea" energy business in the process.

That is higher than previous estimates, and includes a wide variety of jobs from those directly employed in the industry, such as geologists and drilling experts, but also cement manufacturers and people working in local retail and service companies near the drill sites, which is a more controversial measure of employment. The report was published as politicians and businesses met in Brussels to discuss the EU's future energy policy.

Corin Taylor, senior economic advisor at the IoD and lead author of the report, said: "Shale gas could be a new North Sea for Britain, creating tens of thousands of jobs, supporting our manufacturers and reducing gas imports. Further exploration will be needed to assess the size of technically and commercially recoverable resources. At the same time, partnerships need to be established between industry, government and communities to ensure that development of this vital national resource benefits local people."

But green campaigners pointed out that the report had been sponsored by Cuadrilla, the only shale gas company with wells in the UK currently, and said the estimates were based on unlikely scenarios and downplayed the potential destruction and environmental effects of the drilling.

Tony Bosworth, energy campaigner at Friends of the Earth, said: "This industry-funded report paints a completely distorted view of the benefits of shale gas development in Britain. Shale gas extraction will have a major impact on local communities, undermine efforts to tackle climate change and do little to tackle soaring fuel bills. We should be embarking on a clean energy revolution to develop the huge potential from the wind, waves and sun - not rushing further down the dead end street of fossil fuel production."

The IoD report supported recent suggestions by the government and by MPs that local communities should be offered incentives to encourage them to allow planning permission for drill sites. According to Taylor, the best way to do this would be for local authorities to keep 100% of the business rates from shale gas sites.

But this is controversial, as MPs have said the money for cash incentives should come from the companies extracting the gas, rather than taxpayers.

The report cited government estimates that 76% of the UK's gas would be imported by 2030, costing £15.6bn. Taylor found that, against these estimates, shale gas production if vigorously pursued could reduce gas imports to 37% in 2030, with the cost of imports falling as a result to £7.5bn a year.

Dan Byles, a Conservative MP and chair of the new House of Commons group for supporters of unconventional oil and gas, which brings together MPs, peers and experts with an interest in shale gas, said: "Shale gas is about more than simply gas. It is about wider British industry, providing secure energy and raw materials for manufacturers. The North Sea is rightly regarded as a model for effective offshore oil and gas regulation. If we get this right, in future I believe the world could look to the UK as the gold standard for a well-regulated and safe shale gas industry that benefits local communities and the nation."

His intervention came as an energy summit took place among the European council in Brussels on Wednesday, aimed at framing the debate for the EU's energy policy beyond 2020, when current renewable and climate change targets expire. Shale gas was one of the topics of discussion, as well as proposed improvements in energy efficiency and the future of Europe's electricity generation.

Mónica Cristina, of Shale Gas Europe, an industry "resource centre", admitted that shale gas was unlikely to have the sorts of impacts on the EU economy as it had in the US, where shale drilling has sent gas prices plummeting amid a glut of the fuel. There is estimated to be less shale gas resource available in Europe, and it will be much more difficult to extract given the high population density. But Cristina said the fuel could make a contribution: "There is a growing understanding amongst European decision-makers that shale gas development can take place within a responsible regulatory regime. The work to provide clarity about the environmental impacts or the compatibility of shale gas development with the agriculture sector, for example, must go on. Europe has the opportunity to take the best practices from North America, doing it right from day one. In the meantime, shale gas exploration must continue in order to enable an accurate assessment of existing resources."

Green MEPs vowed to fight against plans for an expansion of shale gas across Europe. Claude Turmes, green energy spokesperson, said: "Shale gas is not the silver bullet for Europe's energy policy but rather a dangerous Trojan horse. Moves to promote shale gas must be headed-off. Quite apart from the indisputable environmental and health risks associated with shale gas extraction, the economics of this energy-intensive technology are highly questionable and based on unrealistic estimates. The geographical and demographical situation in Europe is even more unsuitable and we should not make the same mistakes here."

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

Fiona Harvey
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Although scientists have known that a funguslike organism caused the potato blight that triggered the Great Famine in Ireland in the 1840s, they didn't know which strain was the culprit. But they do now, thanks to the genes in some 19th century potato samples.

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Ed Davey tells conference that more than one-third of the UK's subsidies for wind, wave and tidal energy is spent in Scotland

Ed Davey, the UK energy secretary, has warned that Scotland could lose billions of pounds in subsidies for renewable energy projects if it voted for independence, putting its green energy revolution at risk.

Davey told a renewable energy conference in Aberdeen that more than one-third of the UK's subsidies for wind, wave and tidal projects – currently £1.4bn a year – was spent in Scotland. That was worth £530m, even though only 9% of all UK electricity sales were in Scotland.

The energy secretary said that there had been pledges of £13bn worth of investment, and 9,143 jobs, announced in Scottish renewables since 2010, with a further £16.5bn of promised investment in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

UK-wide investment in renewables would rise to £7.6bn a year by 2020, he said. Asking whether an independent Scotland could ever afford supporting that type of investment with just 10% of the market to fund it, the cabinet minister said: "At present Scottish renewables benefit from the ability to spread investment costs across the whole of the UK consumer base. [I] believe Scottish renewables have flourished precisely because Scotland is part of the United Kingdom. Our collective energy system has underpinned the success seen to date."

Davey's remarks will fuel further conflict with Alex Salmond's government after tit for tat threats about the potential conflicts between Scotland and the UK, assuming the nationalists overturn a big gap in the opinion polls to win next year's independence referendum.

Political tensions between the two governments are growing, raising the stakes over future renewable energy cooperation. The first minister claimed on Tuesday that a future independent Scotland could refuse to pay its £92bn share of the UK's debts if the UK government refused to set up a new sterling currency zone.

Salmond claims that all the current assets of the UK, including sterling, are commonly owned by all parts of the UK, and insists that Scotland's substantial green energy resources – theoretically the largest in Europe - greatly increase the arguments for close cooperation between Edinburgh and London.

Scottish ministers claim that if the rest of UK hopes to hit its post-Kyoto climate and renewable energy targets, it is in London's interests to share the heavy investment needed to exploit Scotland's marine energy reserves.

That potential was underscored at the same conference, when a major new wave power project off the Isle of Lewis – the largest in the world so far – was approved by the Scottish energy minister, Fergus Ewing.

Ewing said Scottish ministers had now agreed a new system for increased funding for marine energy. Up to 50 Oyster 800 wave power machines, totalling 40MW, will be deployed by Edinburgh-based Aquamarine Energy off the island's north-west coast.

UK ministers dispute that the rest of the UK would be heavily reliant on Scottish energy: Irish renewables, nuclear power and the UK's own offshore projects would be heavily used. Scottish power firms, which share a UK-wide "single market" of 23 million consumers, would have to compete with other suppliers, they state.

Davey told delegates in Aberdeen: "We cannot assume that English, Welsh and Northern Irish consumers would still be willing to subsidise Scottish renewables.

"But it will be much harder for a nation potentially having to spread the costs of investment in renewables across just two and a half million households to keep prices competitive."

The £29bn of private sector investment in renewables is money that has been announced by companies, between January 2010 and April 2013, but much of it has not yet been delivered. The Department of Energy and Climate Change was unable to say how much had been deployed and how much was still at the planning stage.

The projects that are being planned are uncertain – some may be windfarms or other installations such as biomass power plants that fail to gain planning permission, and the money also includes other investments that may not go ahead, depending on the financial and political environment.

Private sector investors have repeatedly warned that they will reconsider their investments in renewables in the UK if the political environment is perceived to be hostile or policies liable to be revised in future. Many Tory MPs have fuelled this uncertainty through outspoken attacks on renewables and the subsidies for them.

According to Decc estimates, the number of jobs to be created by the £29bn in private sector money is likely to be about 30,000. That would represent about £1m per job.

However, a department spokesman stressed that this measure is only of the jobs directly created in the projects, and does not include jobs in the supply chain and related industries that will also be supported by the new investments. It also does not take into account existing jobs that are supported by the projects, nor the benefits of an overhaul to the UK's infrastructure.

• Renewable energy
• Wind power
• Wave and tidal power
• Energy
• Scotland
• Scottish independence
• Scottish politics
• Ed Davey
• Alex Salmond

Fiona HarveySeverin Carrell
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Gigha halibut's sweet, oaky taste has high-end chefs queueing up – and its production is environmentally friendly

There are stealth bombers cruising through the huge swimming pool, flat-fish the size of doors, changing colour as you watch, from matt black to pebble-and-sand. Fish farmer Bob Wilkieson pulls one up in a net. It is 7kg of dense, thrashing muscle, utterly alien with its twisted face and deltoid wings.

These are four-year-old Atlantic halibut, and they may be the future of fish-farming: raised without chemicals and on organic feed. Unlike the flabby, slimy stuff we have come to accept as farmed salmon, this halibut is lean and far better to eat – in terms of ethics and taste – than its wild brothers.

I went to Gigha, a little island off the Mull of Kintyre, for a taste. Smoked Gigha halibut, which has kept popping up on menus since its launch 18 months ago, is worth the trip. Sliced thin, with a little lemon, its sweet, gently oaky taste (Gigha's smoke-recipe using whisky-barrel chips was designed by the acknowledged master, Allan MacDougall, late of the Loch Fyne smokery) has high-end chefs queueing up for some of the strictly limited production.

As the tiny ferry pushed through the waves and mist, marketing officer Amanda Anderson was busy on the phone to Raymond Blanc's Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons, which has added it to its daily breakfast menu.

This is the latest in a line of extraordinary fish-production enterprises in the west of Scotland, born, like so much in that part of the world, of hard work, original thinking and a sizeable heap of taxpayers' money. EU cash originally built the network of huge tanks and seawater pumps for a salmon farm on this stretch of rocky coast. Now it hosts 6,000 halibut until they are at marketable size. Gigha's community wind turbine provides the power to run the machinery.

Alastair Barge, managing director of Gigha Halibut, was one of the original salmon farming entrepreneurs but, having spent 20 years working out how to raise halibut from microscopic to "car bonnet" size, he now concentrates on techniques that cause less environmental damage. Since 2007, Gigha has provided award-winning halibut to the wholesale fish trade, easing the pressure on a wild stock that has almost collapsed.

Many environmentalists hate fish farming because of the damage it can do. "Salmon farmers will reach straight for the medicine bottle if there's a problem," one former fish farm worker told me. "Salmon farming is all about chemicals, pollution, a ruined seabed and burning diesel."

But, with most wild stocks of fish under extreme pressure, "aquaculture" is the only way most of us will be able to eat fish in future; half the world's seafood is already farmed, most of it for people in Asia. Keeping farmed fish out of the sea bypasses some of its key problems. (That's why, in order to get a licence from US authorities, the new GM super-salmon will be farmed in the hills of Panama). On-shore farms mean no escapes that can contaminate wild stock, and less risk of disease.

"Our veterinarian and medical bill is zero, because we keep densities so low," says Barge as he shows off the darkened tanks where the halibut eggs hatch, in temperatures that mirror the depths of the Arctic ocean. "The feed is offcuts from a certified sustainable fishery, with a vegetable component." Seals can't get at the fish in their tanks, so they're not shot, a sadly common practice in sea fish-farming. And the farmed halibut die more happily too. They are stunned beside their tank, a few seconds out of the water, rather than hauled out of the sea by net to die on a trawler deck.

So why aren't all fish farms like this? A key reason is cost. Salmon-farming moved into the ocean 30 years ago because water-born cages were cheaper; what was once a luxury fish is now as cheap as chicken. Three years ago, a Shetland enterprise developed excellent organic farmed cod – much better than wild cod that may lie on ice in a trawler's hold for 10 days. But though it went into supermarkets as "no-catch cod", the premium price put consumers off and the business quickly folded.

Gigha halibut isn't cheap either, at £12 a kilo for the fresh fish. But, says Anderson, the chefs who buy it welcome consistent quality. Barge thinks there has also been a moral change. "Twenty years ago, drink-driving was OK and eating wild halibut was OK. Now eating wild is becoming something people raise their eyebrows at – and we know what's happened with drink-driving."

Back at the tanks, Wilkieson says farming halibut is worth it because it tastes so good. "I do a mean ceviche with it – coconut milk, lime juice and chilli. Grilled is great. I never eat salmon now."

• Buy smoked Gigha halibut online at gighahalibut.co.uk

• Food & drink
• Fishing
• Fish
• Seafood
• Food
• Wildlife
• Conservation
• Animals
• Marine life
• Scotland

Alex Renton
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Dwarfed by the peaks of the Italian Alps, trail-runner Susan Sauze is scarcely noticeable at first glance as she pounds up the unforgiving terrain towards the camera in this beautiful shot

Jonny Weeks

1.5m people depend on lake for food – including popular Chambo fish – and Malawians are alarmed at decline in stocks

Lloyd Phiri, a fisherman from Senga Bay on Lake Malawi's shores in Malawi's central region, knows that the lake's water levels are dropping. He can see it in his catch, which has shrunk by more than 80%.

Years ago, it was the norm to catch about 5,000 fish a day, Phiri says. But now, if he is lucky, he brings in one-fifth of that. And if he is not, he catches a mere 300 fish a day. "My fish catch has gone down in recent years and this has affected my earnings. I now have problems paying school fees for my children," Phiri tells IPS.

The rapid drop in Lake Malawi's water levels, driven by population growth, climate change and deforestation, is threatening its floral and fauna species with extinction, says Malawi's ministry of environment and climate change management. And included among the wildlife threatened are the fish that Phiri depends on for a livelihood.

"Over the last three decades some water balance models have been done on the lake and have shown that the water levels have dropped from 477 metres above sea level in the 1980s to around 474.88m," says Yanira Mtupanyama, principal secretary in the ministry, of the 29,600 sq km lake that straddles the borders of Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania.

"It's a big deal because studies are showing that the water levels in the lake will keep on dropping in coming years because there are signs that show [there will be] less rainfall and increased evaporation," she says.

An estimated 1,000 fish species rely on the fresh waters of Africa's third-largest lake for their survival, which also provides 60% of this southern African nation's protein requirement. The mbuna cichlids species and the famous tilapia fish, locally known as chambo, are facing extinction. Chambo is Malawi's most popular fish.

The country's department of fisheries says fish stocks in the lake have dwindled by 90% over the past 20 years. It is a huge concern as, according to authorities, about 1.5 million Malawians depend on the lake for food, transportation and other needs.

Of even greater concern are Malawian government reports that the water mass may hold oil and gas reserves. Environmentalist Raphael Mwenenguwe fears that, if oil and gas mining starts on the lake, it could lead to further biodiversity losses.

"The fish stocks have declined in the last two decades from about 30,000 metric tonnes per year to 2,000 per year because of a drop in water levels, overfishing and rapid population growth. But this may get worse if oil is discovered on the lake," Mwenenguwe tells IPS.

Williman Chadza, executive director of the Centre for Environmental Policy and Advocacy, a local NGO that promotes activism on environmental issues, shares Mwenenguwe's fears. "Oil is a resource of paramount importance to a country like Malawi, which is seeking revenue alternatives for its socio-economic development. But its discovery may deepen the country's biodiversity loss and impact badly on water sources," says Chadza.

Mining also poses a threat. A uranium mine in Karonga, a town near Lake Malawi in the north of the country, is one example. The mine, owned and operated by Australian mining giant Paladin (Africa) for the past four years, is regarded as a pollution threat.

"Uranium is a highly radioactive material and therefore there are still threats of polluting the freshwater in Lake Malawi," says Udule Mwakasungura, a human rights activist.

The need to arrest the loss of biodiversity is particularly important in Malawi, where people depend on biological resources to a greater extent than they do in other parts of the world. The 18,000 families of Nguwo fishing village in Senga Bay are an example of this dependency.

"We know that the fish stock has depleted because of unsustainable fishing practices and non-compliance with fishing regulations … we also know that cutting trees unsustainably is ultimately affecting the quality of the water we drink," says village headman Radson Mdalamkwanda.

Mdalamkwanda says fishermen in the village have been working with local authorities to address the threats and challenges facing the conservation of Lake Malawi. He says anyone not following the rules or bylaws is banned from fishing on the lake during October and November, when the fish spawn.

For the past five years, the village development committee has been going to local gatherings to educate residents about the bylaws and the need to protect the lake. "Apart from protecting the fish, we also want to safeguard the water so that it's safe for drinking. We do that by creating awareness at gatherings like weddings and funerals," says Ibrahim Kachinga, the chair of the village committee.

Their efforts complement the Malawi government's attempts to address the challenges to conserving the lake's flora and fauna. "There has been a ban for the last few years on the use of high-yield fishing gear in Lake Malawi between October and November, when the fish are spawning," Mtupanyama says.

Mtupanyama adds that in 2003 the government launched a 10-year strategic plan, which largely seeks to restore the lake's fish stocks. "For the last 10 years we have been restocking the lake with fish by breeding juveniles outside the lake and then reintroducing them. We haven't done badly," she says.

Mtupanyama could not say if this had significantly increased the lake's fish stock, however.

Regardless of what may come of this restocking project, the Nguwo village committee understands that the future of the lake is important. They are educating those who can do something about it – future generations. Kachinga says: "With the help of government, we are also encouraging teachers in nursery and primary schools to teach our children about how to protect the lake."

• Environmental sustainability
• Malawi
• Africa
• Fishing
• Food
• Conservation
• Marine life

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Freshwater supply and water quality under pressure, warns UN secretary general on International Day of Biological Diversity

Ban Ki-moon has warned the world is on course to run out of freshwater unless greater efforts are made to improve water security.

Speaking on the UN's International Day of Biological Diversity, Ban said there was a "mutually reinforcing" relationship between biodiversity and water that should be harnessed.

"We live in an increasingly water insecure world where demand often outstrips supply and where water quality often fails to meet minimum standards. Under current trends, future demands for water will not be met," Ban said.

Water, food, energy and climate are all linked.

Most forms of energy generation require water, variable weather is making agriculture harder while extreme weather events are hindering natural water storage.

Ban believes there is an opportunity to address these challenges as the Millennium Development Goals are replaced with a new set of objectives.

"As the international community strives to accelerate its efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals and define a post-2015 agenda, including a set of goals for sustainable development, water and biodiversity are important streams in the discussion.

"Although seemingly abundant, only a tiny amount of the water on our planet is easily available as freshwater," he said.

The latest UN World Water Development Report, released last year, called for $13.7bn to $19.2bn of the Green Climate Fund's annual targeted funding of $100bn to be directed at the challenges faced by the water sector.

Much of this would be used to tackle supply shortfalls and flood management.

Climate change is already impacting the availability of water through rainfall disruption, soil moisture, glacier, snow and ice melt and river, ground and water flows.

Ban said the once competing campaigns for water and biodiversity protection could now be turned to the benefit of societies facing stresses on both water and food security.

"Where once the focus was on trade-offs between water use and biodiversity, today we are coming to understand how biodiversity and water security are mutually reinforcing," he said.

"Ecosystems influence the local, regional and global availability and quality of water. Forests help regulate soil erosion and protect water quality and supply. Wetlands can reduce flood risks. Soil biodiversity helps maintain water for crops.

"Integrating nature-based solutions into urban planning can also help us build better water futures for cities, where water stresses may be especially acute given the rapid pace of urbanization."

• Access to water
• Water
• Ban Ki-moon
• Biodiversity
• Wildlife
• Rivers

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Climate Desk are invited to dinner by their most pernicious, climate-denying troll, Hoyt Connell

The UK's wildlife is in decline, but our gardens offer a vital haven. Jane Perrone explains how to make your patch greener

The news that UK wildlife is in trouble, with one in three species halving in number in the past half century, should galvanise us all to make our own patch of green as welcoming as possible to wildlife. It may seem like a drop in the ocean, but the 15m gardens in the UK cover 270,000 hectares, covering more space than all the National Nature Reserves in the UK. Here's what to do to make your garden more wildlife-friendly:

Don't be a neat freak
Garden debris – dead leaves, plant stems and the like – provide all sorts of benefits for wildlife, from the lacewings and ladybirds that overwinter in hollow stems to the birds who gather this material for their nests and the hedgehogs who hibernate in dead leaves at the bottom of a hedge. One great way to incorporate dead material into your garden is what's known as a "dead hedge". Here's how.

Build a pond
A stretch of water – even a puddle a few centimetres deep made from an upturned dustbin lid – will entice plenty of wildlife into your garden, from dragonflies and bats to frogs and newts. But don't add goldfish – they eat smaller animals and encourage algal blooms. There's an excellent guide to making a wildlife pond on the Pond Conservation website.

Choose plants for pollinators
Many plants bred in the past few years have done pollinating insects no favours: the fashion for elaborate double flowers that don't allow bees access to pollen and nectar is a real blow to our falling pollinator population. But a resurgence in pollinator-friendly blooms is well under way. Try to buy plants from the RHS Plants for Pollinators list and concentrate on providing a long and uninterrupted season of flowers, from crocuses, single-flowered snowdrops and hellebores in winter, through to asters and anemones in autumn.

Give birds a place to stay
It's easy to buy (or build) nest boxes suitable for almost every garden bird imaginable, from owls to robins and sparrows to housemartins. Take in the BTO's advice on positioning boxes and remember it may take a while before you get any residents – one of my boxes has blue tits raising their brood it for the first time after a three-year wait.

And don't forget the insects
They're aren't as photogenic as birds, but without insects none of your fruit trees will be pollinated and the birds will have nothing to feed on. Insect hotels have become a popular purchase at the garden centre in the past few years, but often their impact is limited by their small size. If you have room, think about creating a wildlife stack instead, using old wooden pallets, roof tiles, scavenged bricks, bamboo canes and stones. You can make a surprisingly attractive garden feature this way – see garden designer's Dawn Isaac's guide to making wildlife stacks for more advice. And if you want to keep the insect population healthy, garden organically, avoiding the use of synthetic chemical pesticides and weedkillers which have been linked to pollinator decline.

Find out more
The tips above are just the start: there are hundreds of things you can do in your garden that will have a positive impact on wildlife. There is a wealth of information online and in print on wildlife gardening, but there's no substitute for joining your local Wildlife Trusts group and learning from experts in your area. One of the best books is Wildlife Gardening for Everyone and the newly-published book by Kate Bradbury, The Wildlife Gardener.

• Gardens
• Wildlife

Jane Perrone
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The comedian says renewable energy projects are subsidy-hunting free enterprise, despoiling 'pristine landscapes'

The comedian Griff Rhys Jones has accused the government of "random desecration" of the countryside and despoiling "pristine landscapes" through its subsidies to wind turbines and solar power.

Responding to criticism of his objection to a solar farm near his home in Suffolk last week, he said it was "not really a Nimby issue," that he was not a climate sceptic and he thought the UK should be powered by new nuclear reactors, not renewable energy.

"We surely need better solutions to global warming than randomly scattered whirly-gigs [sic], and thousands of acres of glinting solar panels, however soothing to our consciences," he wrote in a letter to the Guardian.

Jones has criticised wind turbines as "green tokenism" in the past but his new broadside ups the temperature and broadens his criticism to taxpayer support of green energy, the planning system and the reliability of wind and solar power.

"[The] government is hiding behind subsidy-hunting free enterprise. The result of this has been and is random desecration, with little or no accountability," he said of windfarms that he felt were badly sited. He also suggested the intermittent nature of renewable energy undermined its environmental credentials. "How can we effect [sic] to be green, when we use gas from uncertain fossil fuel driven sources as back up? It is logical to ask why we are assaulting our shrinking countryside in the name of this apparent hypocrisy."

A "distorted" planning system was failing to protect green spaces, he added, but "aiding and abetting an exponential grab at the countryside."

Instead of solar power, which "doesn't operate" at night, he said he would like to see more nuclear power, such as two new planned reactors at Sizewell in Suffolk, because it would cut carbon emissions, provide more power than solar and had a small physical footprint. "I am not a climate change sceptic. I am a solution sceptic," he said.

Jones has emerged as one of the most prominent celebrity opponents of renewable energy. He is not the first well-known TV personality to do so – in 2004, Noel Edmonds gave his backing to anti-wind campaigns following plans for windfarms near his home in Devon.

A spokeswoman for trade body RenewableUK said: "RenewableUK has always advocated a balanced mix to decarbonise our power system and achieve security of supply. The benefits of this can be seen for example when Sizewell B was offline for several months and wind generated the equivalent of electricity for 400,000 homes annually. While no power source generates for 100% of the time, therefore back-up is needed on the system, every unit of wind produced saves us burning polluting imported fossil fuels."

Adam Royle, a spokesman for the Campaign to Protect Rural England, said that solar farms were of increasing concern to its members. "Solar energy has a role to play in helping the UK to meet its renewable energy targets, as part of a mix of renewable technologies. However CPRE's members and supporters are increasingly concerned about the size and scale of some proposed solar parks, and the impact they could have on the landscape. Applications that would take high grade agricultural land out of productive use are particularly concerning. There is a vacuum in planning policy that the government needs to address so that solar farms do not spoil the countryside, are directed to brownfield sites and are of appropriate size and scale."

Jeremy Leggett, whose comment article in the Guardian Jones was responding to, said: "I'm glad that Griff's whole belief system on energy is out in the open now. It's more useful to have these kinds of debates in a holistic context. Let's see how his case fares in reversing the opinion polls that show big majorities of people favouring 'scattered whirly-gigs, and glinting solar panels', and believing – as the Germans are showing every day – that in fact they do a rather good job of cutting greenhouse-gas emissions."

• Solar power
• Energy
• Renewable energy
• Rural affairs

Adam Vaughan
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Jones accuses the government of 'random desecration' of the countryside and broadens his criticism to taxpayer support of green energy, the planning system and the reliability of wind and solar power

Select committee report accuses ministers of failing to set clear goals for what they hope to achieve from flagship energy policy

The green deal, the flagship environmental policy of the UK's coalition government intended to make the country's homes more energy efficient, has received a fresh blow after an influential committee of MPs blasted the government on Wednesday morning for failing to quantify what could be counted as a success for the policy.

The parliamentary select committee on energy and climate change accused ministers of failing to set clear goals for what they hoped to achieve from the green deal. That failure would make it harder to achieve substantial outcomes from the policy, the group of MPs said.

Tim Yeo, former Conservative minister and current chair of the committee, said: "It is unacceptable that, three years into the life of this parliament, ministers are unable to explain what success would look like from one of the coalition's flagship policies."

The committee also listed several obstacles to the green deal, including the difficulty for people renting their homes of obtaining consent from their landlords to take up the offers, and that many people might find the hassle of the building works involved in complex renovations – such as solid wall insulation – too offputting for the low level of benefit they are likely to obtain.

The green deal has been beset by problems since it was announced in the early days of the coalition, with its launch delayed by several months until the end of January this year. Critics have called the scheme over-complex – it relies on homeowners taking out loans to cover energy efficiency improvements to their properties, which are paid back over years in the form of additions to energy bills. The loans apply to the property, so any owner selling needs to pass on the liability to the buyer or pay back the loan early, risking penalties. There have also been concerns that the interest rates charged on the loans would deter many households, and that households may be discouraged by the poor reputation of energy companies after a series of mis-selling scandals and price-fixing in the wider industry.

The government rebuffed the committee's claims of obstacles, saying that any household taking up a green deal offer will be guaranteed to save money on energy bills over the lifetime of the loan. However, although the scheme was formally launched in late January, there have been no publicly released figures yet showing how many households have chosen to install energy efficiency measures as a result of the deal. Those figures are due next month.

In the meantime, the Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc) said last week that nearly 19,000 green deal assessments had been carried out by the end of April. These are undertaken by green deal suppliers in order to inform interested households of how much they could benefit from measures such as cavity wall insulation or windows and door replacements, but they carry no obligation for the homeowner to follow through with the installation.

In its report on progress under the green deal, the committee said that the government must be able to judge whether take-up levels were low or high enough, and if they were found to be too low, to engineer changes to the policy that would improve its uptake.

Greg Barker, minister for energy and climate change, said the results were encouraging: "It's still early days for this long-term initiative, but this is a clear sign of growing interest from consumers, with people keen to improve the efficiency of their homes to make them warmer and help save money on bills."

Decc has previously estimated that 14m households could benefit from the sorts of improvements that would be financed under the green deal, but it has not said how many people it hoped to reach in each year of the policy's operation. The department said the number of suppliers and experts was also increasing: at the end of April there were 55 authorised green deal providers, as well as 1,274 individuals registered to carry out assessments and 942 organisations signed up to carry out installations.

But industry experts called on the government to heed the warnings of the select committee and put more force behind the green deal, as well as quantifying what would be regarded as success from the initiative. Paul King, chief executive of the UK Green Building Council, said: "With rocketing energy bills becoming a real worry for householders, it's encouraging that the government has moved home energy efficiency higher up the agenda. However, while there are positive signs that the green deal is helping to catalyse greater interest in home retrofit, there is a lack of clarity about what success looks like. Government needs to work with the private sector, to produce a clear route map for retrofitting the UK's 26m gas-guzzling homes, detailing what needs to be achieved by when – giving industry the confidence to invest in a new market of energy services and retrofit solutions."

Richard Lloyd, executive director of the consumer advocacy organisation Which?, said: "The government must be clear about what the green deal is expected to achieve, and we welcome the select committee's scrutiny to help hold ministers and officials to account on behalf of consumers. Rising energy prices are consistently one of consumers' top financial concerns so it is right to help people save money by making their homes more energy efficient. The government must act now to make sure that the green deal delivers real savings on energy bills. Any bad practice in selling green deal products must be stamped out as quickly as possible."

Separately, the government announced it would include measures to encourage energy efficiency in the forthcoming energy bill. The decision was welcomed by energy campaigners. Decc said that under its new proposals, companies installing measures that result in permanent reductions in the amount of electricity they use could receive financial incentives. The department said it was deciding whether to "test the proposed approach via a pilot" as a way of gathering evidence on what from the proposed incentive should take.

Andrew Warren, chief executive of the Association for the Conservation of Energy, said: "This is a tremendous triumph for common sense. It is a policy which [we have] campaigned about for over two decades. Throughout that time, every objective study has revealed that it is frequently far cheaper in strategic terms to save electricity than it is to generate electricity. It is very welcome news that at long last the government is legislating so negawatts [amounts of electricity that go unused owing to efficiency measures] will be able to compete on an even playing field with conventional megawatts. We hope that the relevant amendment to the electricity market reform bill will be tabled by the government in time so it can be discussed at the commons report stage [due in about a fortnight]."

• Green deal
• Energy
• Energy efficiency
• Energy bills
• Green politics

Fiona Harvey
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An unprecedented stocktake of UK wildlife has revealed that most species are struggling and that one in three have halved in number in the past half century

An absence of positive political debate about the natural world is even more troubling than the decline in UK wildlife revealed by State of Nature report

More than half the wildlife species found in our islands are declining, under an assault of development, air pollution and chemical attack. Bumblebees, wildflowers, songbirds and butterflies are among the more obvious casualties.

Perhaps even more troubling than freefall declines in red squirrels, harbour seals, hedgehogs, starlings and all the others, is the fact that the crisis facing the living fabric of our environment is hardly mentioned in politics. And not only have ministers recently turned their attention away from the protection of nature, they have presented efforts to protect it as the enemy of growth, development and business.

George Osborne's claim that laws to protect rare species are a 'ridiculous burden on business', Owen Paterson's championing the cause of Bayer and Syngenta in opposing the moratorium on the use of neonicotinoid pesticides and Michael Gove's attempts to downgrade education about our relationship with the natural environment are recent cases in point. With this in mind we can confidently guess that the government's on-going review of EU environmental laws is not intended to strengthen the protection of nature in these islands.

And when it comes to how we approach specific decisions that affect the natural environment, it seems we must doubt the extent to which we can rely on evidence-based policy. Today, policy-based evidence gathering is more common, seen for example in the proposed cull of badgers. And so-called Zombie infrastructure schemes, such as the proposed M4 motorway extension across the Gwent Levels, killed more than a decade ago because of its unacceptable environmental cost, are now back on the agenda.

All of this is predicated on the idea that looking after nature is somehow against the interests of people and the economy. It would be sad, rather than bad, if they actually had a point, but the evidence says the opposite. Material presented in the UK National Ecosystem Assessment, a major study commissioned by government, is a good place to start.

Among many other things, this comprehensive stock-take of nature in our islands found the benefits derived from improved river water quality (mostly down to EU rules) were found to be about £1.1 billion per year, while the value of coastal protection provided by wetlands was estimated to be about £1.5 billion per year.

The amenity value of inland wetlands added a further £1.3 billion per year. Upland peat bogs were assigned multi-million pound value, seen in their contribution to flood risk reduction, water purification and huge carbon storage. The 2012 report of the Independent Panel on Forestry (established in the aftermath of doomed forestry privatization proposals) found that the value of the publicly-owned forestry estate in England was about £400 million per year, delivered on the back of an investment of £20 million. All these values have conservation benefits too.

As politics has gone into reverse on conservation, there are glimpses of good news, in the work of The Wildlife Trusts, RSPB and other conservation groups behind the State of Nature report, who through practical work on the ground support nature's recovery and help people deepen their contact with it, and in ways that leaves us all the better for it, including economically.

But the positive impact is being overwhelmed, as nature is sucked into an ideological vortex based on a fundamental lack of understanding of our dependence on it. The deeply misjudged anti-nature narrative that has become embedded in political discourse is hard to fathom. Not only is it unscientific it is hard to see whom it is meant to appeal to. It's certainly not progressive and forward-thinking companies.

Most ministers lack any serious scientific education, but perhaps they could at least use their classical training to compile the Latin names of the species declining on their watch.

• Tony Juniper is a campaigner, writer and environmental advisor. His latest book, What has nature ever done for us?, is published by Profile Books.

• Wildlife
• Conservation
• Birds
• Bees
• Endangered habitats
• Endangered species

Tony Juniper
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Finally saw the episode the British film crew shot last year.  It actually turned out pretty good even though they left baby Ben out.  Now I have another film opportunity to ponder from the folks at http://warmspringsproductions.com/














Greenhouse is doing well except for my green beans....got swarmed with white flies and only got one harvest off of it.  Gonna stick a grape vine there that I got from a recent visitor.  Got one lone grapefruit hanging in there just a little larger than a golf ball.  My fig tree from last year is loaded up with baby figs.  Still getting lots of chard, spinach, and kale.  85,99,65,0,B,.20

The pollination process is necessary for most of our important food crops. Home Grown New Mexico is giving three classes in June to help people understand how to garden to attract these pollinators.

We will also host two homes with bees in the Kitchen Garden & Coop Tour in Santa Fe on July 28th and in Corrales on August 11th.  Keep looking for fundraising ticket sales on this website.

Look at the COMMUNITY CALENDAR for more details on other gardening, beekeeping, cooking classes and other community homesteading classes.

Saturday, June 1st from 9am-11am
Pollinator Garden Planning
(Please RVSP for Class)
Earth Care Community Garden
(Jaguar and Country Club, by Southside Library in Santa Fe, NM)
Home Grown New Mexico and Earth Care
• Loretta McGrath will discuss which plants pollinators love
•Cost $10 suggested donation
For more information: 505-473-1403/homegrownnewmexico@gmail.com

Saturday, June 15th from 10am-12pm
Bees & Pollination Class
Home Grown New Mexico (Please RSVP for Class)
Santa Fe Skies- Indoor Class
14 Browncastle Ranch (end of Cerrillos at Hwy 14 &599) in Santa Fe, NM
• With Ken Bower
• Learn about fruit trees and honeybees
• Enjoy Breakfast from Crumpackers!
•Cost $10 suggested donation
Contact homegrownnewmexico@gmail.com or 473-1403

Saturday, June 29 from 10am-12pm
Pollinator Garden Planning
Skarsgard Farms Urban Agriculture Education Center
3435 Stanford Drive NE in Albuquerque, NM
Home Grown New Mexico and Skarsgard Farms
• Loretta McGrath will discuss which plants pollinators love
•Cost $10 suggested donation
For more information: 505-473-1403/homegrownnewmexico@gmail.com

The unprecedented analysis shows that many animals, birds, insects, fish and plants are in trouble

• UK wildlife winners and losers - in pictures

An unprecedented stocktake of UK wildlife has revealed that most species are struggling and that one in three have halved in number in the past half century. The unique report, based on scientific analysis of tens of millions of observations from volunteers, shows that from woodland to farmland and from freshwater streams to the sea, many animals, birds, insects, fish and plants are in trouble.

The causes include the intensification of farming, with the consequent loss of meadows, hedgerows and ponds and increased pesticide use, as well as building development, overfishing and climate change. Three in every five of the 3,148 species analysed for the report have declined in the last 50 years and one in 10 are at risk of extinction.

But the report also reveals a few bright spots, such as the reduced water pollution that has allowed otters to return to every county in the UK, and the numerous new ponds created by restored gravel pits.

"This groundbreaking report is a stark warning – but it is also a sign of hope," said Sir David Attenborough. "We should all be proud of the beauty we find on our own doorstep; from bluebells carpeting woodland floors and delicately patterned fritillary butterflies, to the graceful basking shark and the majestic golden eagle soaring over the Scottish mountains. Our species are in trouble, with many declining at a worrying rate, but we have a network of passionate conservation groups supported by millions of people who love wildlife."

The State of Nature report was compiled by 25 conservation groups including the Wildlife Trusts, the Mammal Society, Buglife and the Marine Conservation Society. "This report shows we can do things – it gives the conservation examples – but we need to do a huge amount more," said Dr Mark Eaton, a scientist at the RSPB and one of the lead authors of the report. "We need a root-and-branch rethink of how we integrate conservation with how we live and run our businesses." He paid tribute to the army of tens of thousands of conservation volunteers: "They have played a massive role in making this report far more comprehensive than anything done before and knowledge is the most essential tool that conservationists have."

While 31% of species have lost half their population, only 20% have doubled. Invertebrates such as moths, butterflies and beetles have been particularly affected. Eaton highlights the plight of the spectacular garden tiger moth, numbers of which have fallen by 95%. "This is a big, beautiful moth that was quite common once," he said.

On farmland, which covers 75% of the UK, birds fell by half and butterflies by a third since 1970. Eaton said conservation successes, like the cirl bunting in Devon which was down to its last 100 pairs in the 1980s and are now at around 1,000 pairs, were often very limited in scale, where funding can be targeted. "Skylarks have plummeted in the same way, but as they live all over the country it is hard to tackle. We can't wave a magic wand over the entire countryside," he said.

Cities and towns are important areas because many people only experience wildlife there, according to the report. "Avoiding the loss of sports fields and gardens is very important if we want to have wildlife in our cities," said Eaton. "It is about connectivity, so bats, hedgehogs and so on can move around. If you isolate areas you will greatly impoverish urban areas."

Grassland and heaths, traditionally rich with species like reptiles and orchids, have seen two in three species decline and were already at a low point decades ago, with 97% of lowland meadow having vanished between the 1930s and 1980s. The nation's uplands, home to eagles, mountain hares and rare lichens, have suffered from intensive grazing and burning regimes, and 14 mosses and liverworts have become extinct already. Woodlands have increased, but mainly due to conifer plantations, which do not support much native wildlife.

Coastal birds, such as overwintering geese, are increasing due to lower persecution, but many coastal species of insect and plant that rely on dunes, shingle and saltmarsh are declining as large areas have been developed, as are harbour seals, especially in Scotland. Out at sea, UK fish stocks have improved recently, the report found, though across the EU, 75% continue to be overfished.

In freshwater habitats, Atlantic salmon and water voles have declined but bitterns and otters have benefited from efforts to clean up rivers and recreate lost habitats. Restored gravel pits have been important new wetland habitats, although vast swaths of fen and marsh were drained in previous centuries.

Eaton said the value of wildlife was not just the pleasure it brings: "We know wildlife provides clean air, clean water, stops erosion, pollinates crops and more." He said it was not known how much more could be lost before these "ecosystem services" are drastically affected. Eaton added that the report only covered those species for which data existed, just 5% of the estimated 59,000 species that inhabit the UK, leaving huge gaps in knowledge.

"Wildlife will inevitably change, especially with climate change, but what we want is a landscape that is rich in wildlife, even if they are different things to those in the past," he said.

• Wildlife
• Endangered habitats
• Conservation
• Endangered species
• Animals
• Zoology
• Plants

Damian Carrington
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When disaster strikes, our natural instinct is to take cover and seek shelter. But in severe weather, especially the type that breeds tornadoes like we saw in Oklahoma and parts of the Midwest this week, there are those who ride toward the storm.

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Hipsters may just be discovering the joys of backyard chickens, but in African megacities, people have been bringing their animals into the slums with them for decades. That's creating a new ecosystem of animals and huge numbers of people living closely together like never before.

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Global climate divestment campaigns led by 350.org and Bill McKibben will have a larger moral impact than financial one

Journalist and climate activist Bill McKibben is in Australia in June on his epic Do The Math tour, which aims to highlight the danger of fossil fuel company oil and coal reserves and encourage divestment.

The tour was kick started by McKibben's Rolling Stone article, Global Warming's Terrifying New Math, which argued that in order to stay below the 2C warming limit, the global economy has a budget of less than 565 gigatons of carbon dioxide. Unfortunately, fossil fuel companies have reserves of carbon from oil, coal and gas of almost 3000 gigatons — far exceeding the climate's safe limit if it were to all be burned.

This "math" has been known for some years before McKibben's article. The Potsdam Institute wrote about humanity's carbon budget back in 2009, noting that even if we stayed within budget, we still had a 25% chance of going over 2 degrees warming. Alarmingly, the Potsdam report said global emissions must start falling by 2015 and that reductions must exceed even the most ambitious public targets tabled by governments so far.

Nevertheless, although McKibben didn't invent the "math", he certainly deserves credit for catapulting it back into the spotlight.

Tied to the tour is the 350.org sponsored carbon divestment campaign, targeting mainly students on campuses around the USA (and now Australia) to pressure their university administrations to dump investments in fossil fuel companies. The message of the campaign is that these students can no longer tolerate "business as usual".

The campaign has started to spread to churches, local councils, and in Australia, work is under way for activists to start campaigning to superannuation funds.

And in the USA it has been remarkably successful. More than 300 American colleges have active Go Fossil Free campaigns.

Universities like Harvard or MIT have multi-billion dollar endowment funds. While individual college funds may represent just a small drop in the ocean of international financial markets, the Go Fossil Free campaigns are trying to tap into something deeper with their divestment campaigns.

Divestment campaigns historically have never been about economic pressure. The effectiveness of the South African apartheid divestment campaigns were due to the moral pressure they placed on governments and businesses. They made toleration of apartheid in the USA, Britain and other countries (including Australia) impossible. University campuses were the hubs of much of the campaign activities, engaging not just students but academics and the trustees of university administered funds.

The divestment by the University of California Berkeley's divestment of $3 billion in 1986 was later credited by Nelson Mandela as a catalyst for the collapse of the apartheid government.

Unfortunately, there's every indication that the big fossil fuel companies targeted by McKibben — like Exxon, BP, Chevron and BHP Billiton — are less concerned than Apartheid South Africa was in global public opinion. For example, BP has managed to bounce back from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

It's likely they also have more economic and political clout. The big fossil fuel companies are some of the most profitable companies in history. BHP Billiton for example made a modest $10 billion profit in 2012, and Exxon made over $42 billion.

Given these numbers, it is unlikely that even the $32 billion Harvard endowment would make much of an impact, even if the entire fund was invested in fossil fuel companies. In Australia, only the University of Melbourne has over a billion dollars in their endowment, and even if all the Australian universities combined divested, the business practices of BHP and Chevron are unlikely to change.

I think the real impact of the divestment campaigns must come from their moral authority. Universities (and hopefully superannuation funds) that do divest are taking a moral stand. That stand must be accompanied by efforts throughout the university to highlight the risks posed by dangerous climate change.

Universities train the business leaders of the future. In fact, the graduate schools are often training the business leaders of today! Most business schools include compulsory courses in ethics, but the carbon budget math needs to be embedded into accounting, finance and economics classes from the undergraduate to graduate level.

Lecturers teaching actuaries about risk should be explaining the effects of runaway global warming and the ecological crisis that will occur if we cross over 2 degrees in warming. Engineering and project management students should look at sustainable energy and ecologically sound product supply chains.

And commerce students need to come to grips with the fact that as we get closer to reaching or exceeding our carbon budget, those fossil fuel reserves may become unburnable, leaving investors stranded.

With more and more reports warning of the dire risks if we do not change course, the Go Fossil Free campaign has its work cut out to ensure we don't cross the limit in 2015.

Last year, I had the opportunity to see McKibben and Naomi Klein at the Boston leg of the Do The Math tour and found it excellent and informative.

• Fossil fuels
• Climate change
• Activism
• Carbon emissions
• Coal
• Australia

Alexander White
guardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds