Environment | guardian

White House says oil has gone from Gulf of Mexico oil spill

Heavy rainfall and rising rivers causes flooding in the southern state of Victoria

South West RDA announces successful installation of pioneering marine-energy test device off the Cornish coast

After seven years in the making and a series of last-minute delays, the South West Regional Development Agency (RDA) has finally installed its pioneering Wave Hub device off the north Cornish coast, further establishing the UK as the world's leading test centre for marine energy.

The final phase of deployment began on Friday, when cable-laying vessel Nordica lowered the 12-tonne socket onto the seabed.

Specialist contractor CTC Marine then spent the weekend positioning the device's four 300-metre cables, which serve the four berths that will allow prototype wave energy devices to transmit energy back to the mainland.

Ocean Power Technologies (OPT) has already signed up to plug its PowerBuoy wave energy converter into one of the berths and the RDA is currently in talks with a number of other marine energy developers about them using the test hub.

The news of the successful launch was welcomed by UK science minister David Willetts who said the project could help the UK become a leading exponent of marine energy, creating thousands of jobs in the coming decades.

"The UK is already leading the way with 25 per cent of the world's wave and tidal technologies being developed here," he said. "This is a huge opportunity for UK business – the sector could be worth £2bn by 2050 and it has the potential to create up to 16,000 jobs by 2040."

South West RDA's Wave Hub general manager Guy Lavender said that the facility would provide a major boost to the UK's wave-energy sector for years to come.

"Wave Hub will be on the seabed for the next 25 years, helping the world gain invaluable knowledge about how we tap the vast energy potential of our oceans in the pursuit of clean, abundant, renewable energy and cementing the UK's position at the forefront of this green power revolution," he said.

The project faced a number of delays earlier this summer when equipment problems and weather conditions halted installation of the 25km cable from the device to the shore.

The Wave Hub device will now undergo a series of tests before the first marine energy device is deployed next year.

• Wave, tidal and hydropower
• Renewable energy
• Energy

The plug-in Prius makes local journeys uber-green and ultra-cheap, and the only real drawback is boot space

Green cars are going to be bigger than renewable energy, we heard yesterday. HSBC reckons 8.65m electric vehicles and 9.23m plug-in and hybrid electric vehicles will be sold globally in 2020, up from around 5,000 and 657,000 respectively last year.

But what are these cars actually like to live with? Recently I borrowed Toyota's latest Prius, a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV), to find out.

It's effectively a normal hybrid car – ie it runs on both a petrol engine and electric motor – but as the name suggests, has a plug so you can charge it from the mains too. The bonus is that the plug-in can go for nearly 13 miles on electric-only, far more than the one mile of electric-only the normal Prius manages.

In other words, you can do most of your local journeys in a fashion that's uber-green – and ultra-cheap. And you don't suffer from the "range anxiety" that besets electric cars, most of which, even the fancy new Nissan Leaf, manage no more than 100 miles on one charge. A Ford Focus manages around 370 miles on a tank of petrol.

Government studies suggest electric cars have 40% lower carbon emissions than petrol ones, even with UK's fossil fuel-heavy electricity generation. And at 2p per mile when powered by electricity, versus around 14p per mile for petrol, you can see how driving all your local trips on electric-only could be cheap too.

Driving the plug-in Prius is incredibly similar to the normal Prius, albeit a little slower to accelerate. It's smooth, quiet, comfy. The only bad bit is the boot, which is noticeably smaller than the normal Prius, due to the raised floor that accommodates the battery – which might put off families .

In London, I dropped some friends off, delivered a parcel and ran some errands on electric-only mode before driving the car off to Oxfordshire – at which point the petrol engine and hybrid battery kicked in automatically. On my return journey I popped into the colossal Westfield shopping centre in West London which with 30 electric car charging points is second in the UK only to the 100 at the Highcross Centre in Leicester.

Plugged in via the leads in the boot (see the video below), the electric battery was topped up for free in an hour and a half. While Westfield's developers deserve credit for installing the points in the first place, they also warrant a raspberry for allowing any car to take the charging spaces – they're not reserved for electric vehicles.

And here lies the only real drawback to PHEVs: there are not enough places to charge them, even in the urban areas where they're best-suited. Home-charging, in particular, is tricky in cities because of the lack of driveways and garages. Of course, because you have petrol as a backup, you don't have to panic about recharging as you would with a 100% electric vehicle. But by not being able to charge out and about, you lose the unique environmental and financial benefits.

There are plans to fix this roadblock. The government's 'plugged-in places' scheme is meant to install thousands of points across the UK, but it won't be confirmed (or cut) until the government publishes its comprehensive spending review on 20 October. Rumblings suggest it'll survive the axe.

Nevertheless, the Royal Academy of Engineering thinks plug-ins are a likely short-term alternative to the problems faced by fully electric cars. I'm in agreement – provided the car-makers sort out the boot space and the car park owners keep the sockets free.

• Electric, hybrid and low-emission cars
• Toyota
• Travel and transport
• Motoring
• Ethical and green living

Julia Gillard won the support of the Australian Greens to form a minority government but must deliver on climate reform and carbon pricing

Julia Gillard's new minority government in Australia means that the country's green party will take a pivotal position in the nation's politics for the first time.

Like the UK and Germany, a surge in popularity has given the environmental movement an unprecedented parliamentary presence in Australia this year, prompting suggestions that electorates are punishing mainstream parties for failing to act decisively on climate change.

In last month's poll, the Australian Greens benefited from a bigger swing than any other party, picking up 11.7% of the vote and the first lower house seat they have ever won at a general election. In the upper house, the Senate, they will soon be in an even stronger position, controlling the balance of power with nine of the 76 seats.

Adam Bandt, the victorious Greens MP, believes there are wider global trends behind his party's success. "I think climate was the key issue," he said in an interview with the Guardian. "It is very significant that a couple of unions swung behind me and against Labor."

The change is enormous since the last poll in 2007, when Labor's Kevin Rudd won on the back of a campaign to slash emissions. But neither he nor his successor Julia Gillard made legislative progress on the issue.

Using their new leverage in a hung parliament, the Greens – now the undisputed third party – promised to support Labor in return for a new initiative on climate change. Gillard agreed that if she were to return as prime minister, she would establish a high-level committee – including representatives from the Greens and the science community – to consider ways to put a price on carbon.

"The last Labor government treated climate change like a political football," said Bandt. "When their legislation fell in a heap, Labor said they would not return to the issue until 2013. We hope we have pressed the reset button on that."

A large gap remains between the two parties on emissions targets. The last Labor government aimed for a 5-15% reduction in emissions on 2000 levels by 2020 , mainly through a carbon-trading scheme. The Greens want a 40% cut, initially through a carbon tax.

"There is going to be a hard discussion," said Bandt. "If the process breaks down we reserve the right to introduce our own legislation."

There are strong parallels between Bandt's victory in Melbourne and that of Caroline Lucas in Brighton during the UK election earlier this year. Both were breakthroughs for green candidates in progressive, urban constituencies in nations where the two major parties were unable to convince voters they were worthy of majority government.

Lucas telephoned the Australian Greens to congratulate them on election night. "We put it [Lucas' call] on Skype and then broadcast it on a projector. The response was fantastic. The room went off," Bandt said.

He sees an international dimension to advance of green parties. "There are growing numbers of young people reading and accepting the science of climate change. There is a large constituency that feels betrayed by the rightward move of social democratic parties over the past 30 years and there is a large group of professionals who see that the old parties are not taking rational actions because they are tied to the interests of the 20th-century economy."

Leader of the Australian Greens, Bob Brown, has likened his party's situation to that of Labor at the start of the 20th century – they had yet to win seats or fully organise workers but later went on to govern the nation.

Bandt concurs. "I don't have delusions of grandeur, but there are similarities," he says. "We are doing what needs to be done at this particular point in history. We are driven by a world view, which you cannot say about the other parties."

Although part of the Greens' recent success must be put down to a protest vote, the party has seen a steady rise in the polls over the past 10 years as it has established distinctive policies on immigration, same-sex marriage and healthcare reform.

But if they want to appeal beyond inner-city, university areas, members realise they will have to go further to prove they are more than a single-issue movement. "We have to use the power responsibly because we have never had it before. We have to show people we can be trusted," said Richard Di Natale, a newly elected Greens senator.

• To order Jonathan Watts' book, When a Billion Chinese Jump, for £9.99 (RRP £14.99) call 0845 606 4232 or visit guardianbooks.co.uk.

• Australia
• Julia Gillard

Lianne Ludlow of eco fashion site Fashion-conscience.com picks her favourite eco pieces for a stylish autumn/winter

Kelly Bowerbank visits the clothing charity Traid, where unwanted textiles are diverted from landfill, sorted and reworked into beautiful bespoke garments and accessories

It's time for an upgrade. But that's no reason why your current machine, however ancient, should become landfill

So you've reached that stage of your cycling career – you've had your perhaps very elderly bike for long enough that it's time for an upgrade. But what to do with the original?

A Dutch friend of mine, with three bikes in his basement, told me that all true Dutch people own a similar number of the machines. But that doesn't always work in the UK. Without a basement to inhabit, my bike lives in a small, shared hallway with two others belonging to neighbours, as well as a pram, and a tricycle.

Much as I'd like a bike to lend to guests, or a super lightweight model for longer distances, multiple bikes is not an option for me. If I upgrade I'm going to need to find a new home for my trusty steed – and that's where bike recycling comes in.

As our interactive map shows, up and down the country there are scores of non-profit and voluntary groups which will take your old bike off your hands and find it a loving new home. It can be put to all manner of worthy uses, thus assuaging your guilt about the don't-tell-my-partner-how-much-this-really-cost upgrade.

These include Projects like OWL bikes in Cambridgeshire, which saves bikes from landfill and uses them as a basis for vocational training for adults with learning disabilities, then offering the refurbished cycles for sale.

There's also the Glasgow mental health-cum-bike recycling charity Commonwheel, which runs refurbishment workshops for people suffering from mental illnesses.

Then you have the Oxford Cycle Workshop, which was established in 2001 as a workers' cooperative, and has since saved more than 1,000 bikes from landfill, whilst offering workshop training for young people.

Meanwhile Re-Cycle has shipped almost 35,000 bikes to Africa since 1998. They are based in Colchester but have collection points at other locations.

The good folk of the Isle of Wight alone have collected 1,000 bikes on behalf of Re-Cycle – so many that the island's bus company had to step in and help out with collection and storage. Unwanted bikes can now be handed in to Newport bus station, although you'd best phone first to check. For contact details see our interactive map.

Do you know of any bike recycling projects that aren't listed on our map? If so please tell us and we'll try to add them.

• Cycling
• Voluntary sector
• Ethical and green living

Scientists say chimps face 'major and urgent threat' as the bushmeat trade expands in country's north

• In pictures: Orphans of the bushmeat trade

They are some of the most mysterious apes on the planet that according to local legend, kill lions, catch fish and even howl at the moon. But according to an 18-month study of remote human settlements deep in the Congolese jungle, chimpanzees are being subjected to a "wave of killing" by bushmeat hunters.

The scientists who carried out the study believe that the region, in the north of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), is home to at least 35,000 of the unusually large sub-species of chimpanzees. This is probably the largest population of chimps in Africa, but such is the hunger for chimp meat that the researchers believe the animals are facing a "major and urgent threat" and that northern DRC is now "witnessing the beginning of a massive ape decline."

"I was actually astonished to see the sheer quantities of bushmeat being taken out of the forest," said team member Dr Cleve Hicks, at the University of Amsterdam. "It was really shocking." He estimates that roughly 440 animals in the region are being slaughtered each year.

Because of the remote nature of the terrain and the ferocity of the DRC civil war, it was only in the last decade that the apes were studied in detail by primate researchers. Hicks documented a group of super-sized chimps with a unique culture, including a sighting of the apes feasting on a leopard carcass - although it was unclear whether they had actually killed the animal. He said that the local belief that the animals howl at the moon has never been confirmed.

To document the threat posed by bushmeat traders, Hicks and his colleagues conducted regular surveys of bushmeat markets in local towns and on roads on either side of the Uele river in northern DRC. In total they spent 1,365 days in 10 cities and towns and surveyed 13,140km of road. They recorded chimp carcasses and orphans for sale. The primatologist Dr Jane Goodall has estimated that for every chimp orphan that is sold as a pet, 10 others from its family group will have been killed.

In total, the team saw 44 orphan chimps and 35 carcasses, plus nine leopard skins, 10 okapi (a type of antelope) skins, parts of 14 elephants, bushmeat from two hippos, 169 monkey carcasses and 69 monkey orphans. Two of the orphan chimps had their top incisors knocked out or burned down with hot knives to prevent them from biting their handlers. The study is published in the peer-reviewed journal African Primates.

Almost all of this trade, which the researchers describe as "larger and more widespread than anticipated, and expanding", is happening in the region south of the Uele river. Here the human population is more dense than to the north because of illegal artisanal goldmining operations. Also local taboos about eating bushmeat have begun to break down in recent years. Hicks, who is also affiliated with the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, said that one tribe, the Barisi, used not to harm the animals because they believed their tribe was descended from a union between a man and a female chimp. The women of two other tribes, the Azande and Babenza, previously refused to eat or cook ape meat for fear that it would result in them giving birth to babies with "big ears".

The spread of a Christian group called the "message believers" whose doctrine is based on the teaching of an American faith healer and preacher called William Branham who died in 1965 has swept away some of the old beliefs. Hicks said that followers interpret his teachings as condoning bushmeat hunting.

A spokesperson for William Branham ministries said that this was a misinterpretation of Branham's teachings. "I have no idea where they would be getting that," he said. "He didn't have any type of doctrine where you can eat whatever you want. William Branham was an avid outdoorsman. It was very important to him to follow all the laws of the land."

Hicks said that many people do not know that it is against DRC law to hunt chimpanzees and that the law is not enforced locally. Some of the people who had orphan chimps even showed the researchers documents signed by local officials that purportedly gave them permission to keep the animals. "Once the population is fragmented [its decline] is probably going to speed up rapidly," said "Hicks. "What we are seeing probably is the beginning of that process. Its not too far gone yet too stop it ... There are very few roads so theoretically it wouldn't be that difficult to control."

Alice Macharia of the Jane Goodall Institute in Arlington, Virginia said: "The increasing level of the bushmeat trade in this region is truly alarming. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which has the largest population of chimpanzees in the wild, the bushmeat trade, the illegal commercial hunting of chimpanzees, remains one of the greatest threats to their survival along with loss of habitat due to deforestation. When roads are cleared to make way for mining, logging and other concessions, hunters have greater access to these endangered animals."

• Wildlife
• Animals
• Democratic Republic of the Congo

Tarnished Earth is a dramatic street gallery of photographs telling the story of the destruction of Canada's boreal forest in the rush to extract oil from the tar sands just below its surface

A new 'wave of killing' of chimpanzees for bushmeat has resulted in huge numbers of orphans

Old bicycles cluttering up your garage? Why not donate them to one of these recycling charities?

At the Gillingham & Shaftesbury Show we paused at a tent surrounded by gleaming, blue agricultural machines to see a friend who knows the area's farmers, as he has spent his whole working life travelling north Dorset to sell tractors. He spoke of the trouble the long rainless spell (since broken) had caused, with only one good cut of hay rather than two or three. By Christmas, he said, fodder would be like gold dust. But there were positive signs too: a giant tractor bristling with sophisticated add-ons had a "sold" notice on it, and the farming folk sitting down to a ploughman's lunch and a glass or two had a hearty and contented look. Later on, Dorset was to provide supreme champions in both dairy and beef cattle classes.

An eager crowd pressed round the Turnpike Ring to watch a falconer training a young peregrine. A peregrine, he said, could reach a speed of over 200mph. This one, only eight months old, was very reluctant to leave his glove and perch on an assistant's while he slowly backed away to a distance of about a cricket-pitch length. Then, at a command, the bird was released, flew to the falconer's glove, and was rewarded with a piece of steak and appreciative applause. Next, the trainer stood farther away and twirled the "lure", a pheasant wing on the end of a line. The young bird swooped to a midair catch, earning a bigger reward and louder applause.

This is a great show for dogs and dog owners. There were gun dogs, fox hounds, hearing dogs for deaf people, and all manner of working dogs. We met a pair of big, amiable and beautifully groomed dogs with black, woolly coats. The owners told us they were Tibetan mastiffs, once bred as fearsome guards of herds and nomad camps. And the three tall, rangy dogs with sparse, wispy coats, lounging in the sunshine, were Scottish deerhounds, noted less for lively action than for spending long hours stretched out in comfort.

• Dorset
• Farming

We, the undersigned – all winners of the Right Livelihood award, commonly known as the "alternative Nobel prize" – are greatly concerned for the welfare of our friends and fellow laureates, the Bushmen of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve. Without access to water, a fundamental human right, they are struggling to sustain their way of life on their ancestral lands (Report, 23 July).

All the Bushmen want is to be able to use a borehole which they used before they were illegally evicted from their lands. To deny them this is inexcusable. 

We urge the Botswana government to allow the Bushmen access to water on their lands, and work with them to ensure a sustainable future for everyone. In the words of the Bushman spokesman Roy Sesana: "We aren't here for ourselves. We are here for each other and for the children of our grandchildren."

Ibrahim Abouleish (Egypt)

Marcos Aran, International Baby Food Action Network (Mexico)

András Biró/Hungarian Foundation for Self-Reliance (Hungary)

Carmel Budiardjo (UK)

Tony Clarke (Canada)

Erik Dammann/The Future in Our Hands (Norway)

Hans-Peter Duerr (Germany)

Samuel Epstein (USA)

Anwar Fazal (Malaysia)

Festival Internacional de Poesía de Medellín (Colombia)

Johan Galtung (Norway)

Wes Jackson/The Land Institute (USA)

Katarina Kruhonja (Croatia)

Ida Kuklina/The Committee of Soldiers' Mothers of Russia (Russia)

Manfred Max-Neef (Chile)

Pat Mooney (Canada)

Alice Tepper Marlin (USA)

Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (Nigeria)

Nicanor Perlas (Philippines)

Raúl Montenegro (Argentina)

Juan Pablo Orrego/ Grupo de Acción por el Biobío (Chile)

Kerala Sastra Sahitya Parishad (India)

Right Livelihood Award Foundation (Sweden)

Mycle Schneider (France)

Suciwati, wife of late Munir (Indonesia)

Hannumappa Sudarshan, VGKK (India)

Vesna Terselic (Croatia)

Trident Ploughshares (UK)

John F. Charlewood Turner (UK)

Judit Vásárhelyi, on behalf of Duna Kör (Hungary)

Alla Yaroshinskaya (Russia)

• Botswana
• Indigenous peoples
• Water
• Deserts
• Land rights
• Human rights

Your article (EU urged to end African 'land grab' for biofuels, 30 August) on the latest report from Friends of the Earth on biofuels falls into the trap of being overly simplistic on a topic of enormous complexity – namely, how can we ensure smart land use across the globe to meet human needs for food, fuel, clothing, building materials, medicines and a host of other requirements?

The FoE report focuses on biofuels, but appears to ignore the fact that the UK and the EU have mandatory rules for the sustainable production of biofuels, including minimum reductions in carbon emissions. Shouldn't all sectors have similar rules? The FoE report also repeats the misinformation of 2008 which laid the blame for rising food prices on biofuels. The World Bank published a report in July this year which concluded that energy prices and speculation, and not biofuels, played significant roles in the price spikes of recent years. Finally, FoE asserts that there is not enough land in the UK and the EU to deliver the EU's target for renewable transport. The Renewable Energy Association published a study in 2009, peer-reviewed by Imperial College London, which indicated that 80% of the EU's requirements could come from domestically produced biofuels, by smart land use and improved productivity.

Global sustainability rules, smart land use and increased agricultural productivity will go a long way to ensuring that human needs can be met in the future. Underinvestment in agriculture globally is our challenge – taking pot shots at biofuels will change nothing.

Clare Wenner

Head of renewable transport, Renewable Energy Association

• Biofuels
• Farming
• Land rights
• Deforestation
• Energy industry

Plymouth residents have complained to the council about the 10-metre trees outside David Alvand's home

It is probably safe to assume that David Alvand likes his privacy. Firstly the civil engineer spent 12 years fighting a court battle over a 3.6-metre (12ft) concrete wall which he erected without planning permission around his back garden.

It was finally dismantled just before the case reached the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).

Now it is the front of Alvand's suburban semi-detached house in Plymouth, Devon, which has agitated the neighbours.

They have launched a formal complaint under antisocial behaviour legislation to force him to cut back the vast leyland cypress trees completely filling the front garden.

Planted in 1991, shortly after the 66-year-old moved into the area, the famously fast-growing trees – better known as leylandii and the source of countless previous neighbourly disputes, some turning violent – are now more than 10 metres tall.

As well as completely obscuring the front of Alvand's home, their higher branches overhang his neighbours' roofs, as well as the pavement.

One neighbour said: "That wall took years to sort out. It's been a nightmare. Now the trees are an eyesore – they block out sunlight and make the street look bad."

Alvand, however, said he was being unfairly targeted: "I have been chased for two decades over the state of my gardens. I feel victimised. The neighbours are complaining because they have a vendetta against me. I am a law abiding citizen and I have suffered for 20 years being chased over my wall and trees. It's my land."

Alvand was almost jailed in 2003 for refusing to remove the concrete breeze block barrier, known among neighbours as "the Berlin Wall" and built despite the council refusing planning permission. He claimed the structure, topped with corrugated iron, was in fact a greenhouse and thus did not need consent.

After three appeals, a public meeting, a hearing at a magistrates court, two at the high court and one before the appeal court in London, and shortly before the case reached the ECHR, Plymouth council was granted the right for Alvand to be jailed while it removed the wall. Alvand, who had cost the council £20,000 in legal fees, then backed down.

The council says it is investigating the leylandii but hopes the case can be solved through mediation.

• Human rights
• European Court of Human Rights

Industry experts fear that many of Obama's changes in wake of Gulf oil spill will be no more than cosmetic

Oil industry executives in the US call the Gulf of Mexico the "wild wild west", a place where regulations are rarely enforced and offshore operators can do what they want. Barack Obama has promised to tighten regulations to prevent a repeat of the Gulf disaster but many within the industry are sceptical that much will really change.

A failure of regulation is as much the cause of the disaster as the actions of BP and the other companies involved on the Deepwater Horizon rig, which exploded in April. The evidence that has emerged so far from the US congressional investigations reveals countless instances of standard safety procedures being ignored. It transpires that the federal regulator, the Minerals Management Service, wasn't so much asleep at the wheel but abdicated itself entirely of any responsibility for making sure offshore operators complied with the law.

Staff allowed operators to fill in and sign off safety audits of their offshore operations that the regulator was supposed to carry out itself. Among Houston-based insurers, BP had a reputation for being the riskiest operator and for pushing its subcontractors the hardest, industry sources have told the Guardian. But it would never have been allowed to carry on like this had the regulatory sytem not failed.

Reining in the industry will be no easy feat. Big Oil – like much of the American South where it is based – is fiercely resistant to what it perceives as interference from the federal government. In New Orleans in June, a judge ruled in favour of a group of oil services companies that had appealed against the moratorium on deepwater drilling imposed by the White House following the disaster. The judge agreed that the ban risked causing more economic damage to the region. In the end the ban still stood, but Obama was given a bloody nose and reminded that the oil industry was not about to turn the other cheek.

Industry experts fear that many of the changes will be no more than cosmetic. Obama is planning to break up the MMS to prevent conflicts of interest arising in the future, and has already changed its name. He has also promised to end the revolving-door practice of staff finding well-paid jobs as lobbyists for the industry when they leave the regulator.

Mike Sawyer, a Houston-based oil industry engineer, is not hopeful that the new regulator will be any more effective than its predecessor. "You have the same guys from the agency now working for the new regulator. All that's happened is the pack has been reshuffled. If you put a dress on a pig it's still a pig," he says. Without a massive increase in funding, it's hard to see how any regulator can closely monitor hundreds of offshore operators, many of whom are drilling in water thousands of feet deep using increasingly sophisticated technology. "Anytime that someone from MMS or any other government regulator goes out to one of the rigs or refineries, the engineers run circles around them on knowledge – as a regulator you can't see everything," Sawyer adds.

The oil industry is notorious for wielding influence in the corridors of power in Washington to protect its interests. According to a political watchdog, the Centre for Responsive Politics, companies contributed more than $35m to federal political candidates and parties ahead of the 2008 election. One source recalls trying to drum up interest in Washington about a lawsuit being filed against a major oil company in the Gulf. "Each time we visited, the politicians would say 'oh, that company has just been here'. They were always one step ahead of us. No-one was interested in what we had to say."

The oil industry has a powerful card to play with the politicians: energy security. Domestic oil production, most of which comes from the Gulf, reduces US dependence on foreign imports. Companies have already threatened to take their rigs elsewhere if new safety regulations make drilling too expensive.

BP's public relations line is that it will take responsibility for cleaning up the Gulf and making those affected by the disaster "whole" again. But privately its lawyers will fight tooth and nail to limit the amount of fines and compensation it must pay out. BP is still in dispute with another regulator, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (Osha), over the explosion at its Texas City refinery back in 2005 that killed 15 workers. Osha had originally fined BP $87m for not implementing hundreds of required safety improvements at the refinery. BP appealed and recently negotiated an out-of-court settlement over some of the charges, but will continue to contest the rest. It knows its negotiating position is stronger now because public – and political – interest has moved on.

Brent Coon, a lawyer who represented one of the victims of the explosion who successfully sued BP, says he fears a similar scenario could occur in the Gulf now that BP has finally sealed the well for good. "The public is not thinking too closely now about what happens when the media and the cameras leave but when that happens, the people of the Gulf will be left to their own devices."

• Oil
• United States
• BP
• Oil and gas companies
• Energy industry
• Oil
• Energy
• Obama administration
• US politics

What executives are labelling 'Future BP' will be a much smaller company shorn of much of its presence around the world

BP is still standing, but the Gulf of Mexico oil spill has changed the company forever. It could have been far worse.

In June, some City analysts doubted whether BP could survive the crisis. Shares had plunged by more than half. Within the space of a few weeks, the official estimate of the amount of oil flowing into the Gulf had increased from 5,000 barrels to anywhere between 35,000 and 60,000 barrels per day. The company's repeated attempts to stop the flow had failed and August – the earliest the first relief well could be drilled – seemed a lifetime away.

The chief executive, Tony Hayward – who has since resigned – and BP's chairman were summoned to meet Barack Obama at the White House. They were forced to scrap plans to pay shareholders a dividend and instead to set aside $20bn to pay damages to those affected.

While the battle to stop the leak is over, the legal battle is only just beginning. BP will fight tooth and nail against accusations that it was grossly negligent. If the charge stands, it faces fines of up to $21bn. BP wouldn't be able to pass off other costs, such as the clean-up and damages, to its partners. With investigations by the Department of Justice, among others, only just beginning, US lawyers say it will take years to decide who was to blame for the accident – and the full level of BP's liabilities.

The company is already selling $30bn worth of assets to meet its costs from the spill so far. What executives are labelling "Future BP" will be a much smaller company shorn of much of its presence around the world. If investigations decide it has been grossly negligent, many more asset sales will be necessary.

BP argues that whatever happens, it is in the US's interests that it survives so it can meet all its liabilities. But it may be some time before it can afford to resume paying bumper dividends, which normally make up more than one-tenth of all payouts by UK companies.

• BP
• Oil and gas companies
• Energy industry
• Oil
• BP oil spill
• Oil
• Oil spills
• United States

Head of Transocean, which operated destroyed Deepwater Horizon oil rig, to be asked about safety and deepwater drilling

British politicians will challenge the UK head of Transocean, the operator of the destroyed Deepwater Horizon rig, tomorrow over whether the Gulf of Mexico disaster could be repeated in the North Sea.

In the first televised hearing of an investigation by MPs into what lessons can be learnt from the disaster, Paul King, Transocean's managing director, and other oil industry executives will be questioned about the North Sea safety regime, particularly for deepwater drilling.

Transocean has a sizeable presence in the North Sea, with more rigs operating than in the Gulf, although they are mostly at shallower depths.

Led by committee chairman Tim Yeo, a former Conservative environment minister, the MPs will ask how many rigs operate with only one set of "blind shear rams" inside their blowout preventer, the last line of defence against a major spill.

The Deepwater Horizon's single pair of shear rams, which are supposed to cut through the pipe to close off the well in the event of a blow-out, failed to activate.

Transocean's new rigs are built so that they can accommodate two sets of blind shear rams, which make such a catastrophic failure less likely. But UK regulations do not require operators to use blowout preventers with two pairs of blind shear rams. A spokesman for the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) said yesterday that the rules were "goal-setting and not prescriptive".

In the wake of the Deepwater Horizon disaster US politicians have called for the use of double rams to be obligatory.

Members of the House of Commons energy and climate change committee will also ask whether undersea robots would be able to remotely activate a blowout preventer in the event that it failed to shut down a blown well.

BP tried repeatedly to do this in the Gulf without success, leading to the worst oil spill in US history.

Transocean's record has come under closer scrutiny following a report by the HSE, revealed in the Guardian this week, which said that the company's organisational culture was based on blame and intolerance. It also said instances of unacceptable behaviour by offshore management were raised with HSE inspectors by Transocean staff on more than one North Sea rig visited. These included bullying, aggression, harassment, humiliation and intimidation, and were "causing some individuals to exhibit symptoms of work-related stress, with potential safety implications", the HSE said.

Malcolm Webb, chief executive of trade body Oil & Gas UK, as well as the head of a new oil response industry body, will also be questioned. Webb is expected to mount a robust defence of the North Sea safety regime and reject calls for the UK to issue a moratorium on new drilling, as the US has done, until the causes of the Gulf disaster are known.

The British government recently closed bidding for the 26th licensing round to drill in new areas of the North Sea, which was one of the most hotly contested for some time. The round includes new blocks for the west of Shetland, one of the last frontiers of the North Sea which contains more than a fifth of Britain's remaining oil and gas reserves, most of it in deepwater and rough seas. BP is one of the companies thought to be keen to start drilling in unexplored waters.

Webb will also reject suggestions – first made by Europe's energy commissioner in July – for offshore drilling to be governed by European-wide, rather than national, legislation. The committee will also raise concerns that the moratorium in the US and Norway could result in more deepwater activity in the UK.

Charles Hendry, the UK energy minister, will appear before the committee at a later hearing. He has insisted that the existing North Sea safety regime is adequate, following a brief review immediately after the Gulf disaster. One improvement already announced is a plan to increase the number of government inspectors for the 300 rigs and platforms in the UK North Sea from six to nine.

• BP oil spill
• Oil
• Commodities
• Oil and gas companies
• Energy industry
• BP
• Oil
• Oil spills
• Pollution

The ethical case against eating animal produce once seemed clear. But a new book is an abattoir for dodgy arguments

This will not be an easy column to write. I am about to put down 1,200 words in support of a book that starts by attacking me and often returns to this sport. But it has persuaded me that I was wrong. More to the point, it has opened my eyes to some fascinating complexities in what seemed to be a black and white case.

In the Guardian in 2002 I discussed the sharp rise in the number of the world's livestock, and the connection between their consumption of grain and human malnutrition. After reviewing the figures, I concluded that veganism "is the only ethical response to what is arguably the world's most urgent social justice issue". I still believe that the diversion of ever wider tracts of arable land from feeding people to feeding livestock is iniquitous and grotesque. So does the book I'm about to discuss. I no longer believe that the only ethical response is to stop eating meat.

In Meat: A Benign Extravagance, Simon Fairlie pays handsome tribute to vegans for opening up the debate. He then subjects their case to the first treatment I've read that is both objective and forensic. His book is an abattoir for misleading claims and dodgy figures, on both sides of the argument.

There's no doubt that the livestock system has gone horribly wrong. Fairlie describes the feedlot beef industry (in which animals are kept in pens) in the US as "one of the biggest ecological cock-ups in modern history". It pumps grain and forage from irrigated pastures into the farm animal species least able to process them efficiently, to produce beef fatty enough for hamburger production. Cattle are excellent converters of grass but terrible converters of concentrated feed. The feed would have been much better used to make pork.

Pigs, in the meantime, have been forbidden in many parts of the rich world from doing what they do best: converting waste into meat. Until the early 1990s, only 33% of compound pig feed in the UK consisted of grains fit for human consumption: the rest was made up of crop residues and food waste. Since then the proportion of sound grain in pig feed has doubled. There are several reasons: the rules set by supermarkets; the domination of the feed industry by large corporations, which can't handle waste from many different sources; but most important the panicked over-reaction to the BSE and foot-and-mouth crises.

Feeding meat and bone meal to cows was insane. Feeding it to pigs, whose natural diet incorporates a fair bit of meat, makes sense, as long as it is rendered properly. The same goes for swill. Giving sterilised scraps to pigs solves two problems at once: waste disposal and the diversion of grain. Instead we now dump or incinerate millions of tonnes of possible pig food and replace it with soya whose production trashes the Amazon. Waste food in the UK, Fairlie calculates, could make 800,000 tonnes of pork, or one sixth of our total meat consumption.

But these idiocies, Fairlie shows, are not arguments against all meat eating, but arguments against the current farming model. He demonstrates that we've been using the wrong comparison to judge the efficiency of meat production. Instead of citing a simple conversion rate of feed into meat, we should be comparing the amount of land required to grow meat with the land needed to grow plant products of the same nutritional value to humans. The results are radically different.

If pigs are fed on residues and waste, and cattle on straw, stovers and grass from fallows and rangelands – food for which humans don't compete – meat becomes a very efficient means of food production. Even though it is tilted by the profligate use of grain in rich countries, the global average conversion ratio of useful plant food to useful meat is not the 5:1 or 10:1 cited by almost everyone, but less than 2:1. If we stopped feeding edible grain to animals, we could still produce around half the current global meat supply with no loss to human nutrition: in fact it's a significant net gain.

It's the second half – the stuffing of animals with grain to boost meat and milk consumption, mostly in the rich world – which reduces the total food supply. Cut this portion out and you would create an increase in available food which could support 1.3 billion people. Fairlie argues we could afford to use a small amount of grain for feeding livestock, allowing animals to mop up grain surpluses in good years and slaughtering them in lean ones. This would allow us to consume a bit more than half the world's current volume of animal products, which means a good deal less than in the average western diet.

He goes on to butcher a herd of sacred cows. Like many greens I have thoughtlessly repeated the claim that it requires 100,000 litres of water to produce every kilogram of beef. Fairlie shows that this figure is wrong by around three orders of magnitude. It arose from the absurd assumption that every drop of water that falls on a pasture disappears into the animals that graze it, never to re-emerge. A ridiculous amount of fossil water is used to feed cattle on irrigated crops in California, but this is a stark exception.

Similarly daft assumptions underlie the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation's famous claim that livestock are responsible for 18% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, a higher proportion than transport. Fairlie shows that it made a number of basic mistakes. It attributes all deforestation that culminates in cattle ranching in the Amazon to cattle: in reality it is mostly driven by land speculation and logging. It muddles up one-off emissions from deforestation with ongoing pollution. It makes similar boobs in its nitrous oxide and methane accounts, confusing gross and net production. (Conversely, the organisation greatly underestimates fossil fuel consumption by intensive farming: its report seems to have been informed by a powerful bias against extensive livestock keeping.)

Overall, Fairlie estimates that farmed animals produce about 10% of the world's emissions: still too much, but a good deal less than transport. He also shows that many vegetable oils have a bigger footprint than animal fats, and reminds us that even vegan farming necessitates the large-scale killing or ecological exclusion of animals: in this case pests. On the other hand, he slaughters the claims made by some livestock farmers about the soil carbon they can lock away.

The meat-producing system Fairlie advocates differs sharply from the one now practised in the rich world: low energy, low waste, just, diverse, small-scale. But if we were to adopt it, we could eat meat, milk and eggs (albeit much less) with a clean conscience. By keeping out of the debate over how livestock should be kept, those of us who have advocated veganism have allowed the champions of cruel, destructive, famine-inducing meat farming to prevail. It's time we got stuck in.

• Veganism
• The meat industry
• Farming
• Food
• Agriculture
• Deforestation
• Conservation
• Forests
• Carbon emissions
• Food & drink