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Three recent studies shed new light, as understanding how the behaviour of Australia's wildlife changes at night can help scientists better protect them. Euan Ritchie, Associate Professor in Wildlife Ecology and Conservation, Centre for Integrative Ecology, School of Life & Environmental Sciences, Deakin University Courtney Marneweck, Postdoctoral Researcher in Carnivore Ecology, Clemson University Grant Linley, PhD Candidate, Charles Sturt University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Angus Taylor seeks to destroy the culture of the CEFC and its staff by trying to force them to give loss-making loans to gas projects that it cannot legally make. 

The post Don’t pollute the Clean Energy Finance Corporation with loss-making gas appeared first on RenewEconomy.

For one brief shining moment it seemed humanity’s inability to imagine much beyond our lived experience was irrelevant. Covid was coming for us all

• This is part of a series of essays by Australian writers responding to the challenges of 2020

The chicken shack was nearly an hour’s walk through Seoul in the subzero night, but they served up damn good chicken, and dangerously cheap beer, and we agreed the risk of becoming lost and freezing to death on the street was worth it. My son, Thomas, spent his early years in Canberra, and he does not feel the cold like I do, routinely sleeping with his bedroom windows wide open through the winter. But on this night even he swaddled up with multiple layers of hoodies, scarves and so much Korean puffer-wear that we were less men than giant, shambling marshmallows in search of the dirty bird.

There was, as well, a quiet pleasure to be had from the killing cold. When we had flown out of Australia a few days earlier the whole of the sky was smeared a smoky orange ochre, and the familiar steam press humidity of summer in the subtropics had evaporated under a furnace blast of dry heat from the heart of the continent. It felt good to shiver and contemplate the lot of everyone we’d left behind, especially as we drummed greasy fingertips on painfully distended tummies full of spicy chicken meat. But enjoyment would pass.

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Marine park authority cites excessive and illegal fishing that can hit resilience of reef’s ecosystem

Under-regulated fishing along the Great Barrier Reef is putting the world’s biggest coral reef system at further risk as it deals with repeated mass bleaching events, the Australia government’s marine park authority has found.

Conservationists and recreational fishing groups have told Guardian Australia the Queensland government’s rollout of major fisheries reforms, designed to tackle the issues along the reef, has stalled.

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Sussan Ley announces audit after Guardian Australia revealed her department allowed the birds to be exported to Germany

The environment minister, Sussan Ley, has appointed an auditor to investigate her own department over the export of hundreds of native and endangered parrots to Germany over a three-year period.

Guardian Australia revealed in 2018 that the Australian government permitted the export of hundreds of birds to a German organisation despite concerns they were being offered for sale rather than exhibited.

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List comes after Trump order in June directed agencies to use emergency authority to speed projects amid economic downturn

The Trump administration has identified dozens of major fossil fuel, energy and water projects that could be fast-tracked by expediting environmental reviews amid the pandemic, according to internal government documents.

At least 19 of the projects are from companies that have spent a total of $16m lobbying the interior department since early 2017, according to an analysis by the conservation group the Center for Western Priorities. ConocoPhillips spent $11.2m of that amount lobbying the department, including on plans to drill for oil and gas within the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska, the group said.

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Sixteenth thousand academics urge EU leaders to increase investment over the next seven years.

Mature male elephants play a crucial role in passing on their knowledge to younger males, a study suggests.

Gulf Livestock 1, carrying more than 40 crew members and nearly 6,000 cattle, foundered off coast of Japan

New Zealand has suspended live cattle exports after a ship carrying almost 6,000 animals sank off the Japanese coast on Wednesday. There are growing fears for the fate of the more than 40 crew members on the Gulf Livestock 1, with reports of just one survivor so far.

The vessel was on its way to China when it reportedly developed engine problems and sank in rough seas caused by Typhoon Maysak, the survivor said.

The rescued Filipino crew member was recovered after a Japanese navy P-3C surveillance aircraft spotted him wearing a life vest and waving while bobbing in the water.

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A study reveals true scale of the prehistoric mega-shark made famous in Jason Statham's The Meg.

This summer’s carbon emissions from Arctic wildfires were a third higher than last year’s levels.

Inspired by the fear and loathing on display at the Republican National Convention, Anohni talks us through her latest song and its uniquely unsettling video

I watched the Republican National Convention last week. It’s becoming harder to put into words the dread that many of us feel.

What’s really happening? Toxic levels of corruption and collusion are devouring the US. Christian extremists want to turn the country into a religious state straight out of The Handmaid’s Tale.

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The voluntary carbon market could be ripe for consolidation as demand for corporate climate strategies gather pace and digital services grow in sophistication.

China’s environment ministry is opposing an initiative to list carbon contracts on a futures exchange in Guangdong province, preferring instead to focus on developing the nation’s spot emissions market, according to local news reports.

The devastating blazes began just as I began a two-week quarantine. We desperately need leadership

At 10am on 16 August, I drove east from Santa Cruz to Oakland to my mom’s nursing home, where I was being allowed in, in full PPE, to kiss her a last goodbye. As I curved north through San Jose, I could see a billowing steel-gray fire cloud among the hills to the east. Lightning flashed past Berkeley as I pulled into the parking lot. On the way home, I took the long route across the San Mateo Bridge, then over the top of the San Francisco Peninsula and south from Half Moon Bay. Halfway down the coast I saw a helicopter dropping bright red pillows of retardant on to a fire streaming its smoke in a flat horizontal panel out to the ocean. Ten minutes later I passed white smoke pouring down another canyon on my left. Before I pulled into my driveway at the edge of Santa Cruz, I could see a fourth, giant fire spewing far to the south beyond Salinas.

By afternoon it was clear that the fires I’d seen were just a few of the hundreds sparked all over northern California by freak thunderstorms that weekend, in which 10,800 lightning strikes ignited 367 fires. Soon, hundreds of the small fires converged into bigger and bigger ones, so fast and so vast that Cal Fire didn’t even give names to the largest ones as it usually does, resorting to acronyms like the SCU Lightning Complex, the LNU Lightning Complex, and my own fire to the north and east of Santa Cruz, the CZU Lightning Complex.

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UK study shows dorsal fin of prehistoric mega-fish was similar height to adult human

The enormous size of a prehistoric mega-shark made famous in Hollywood films has been revealed for the first time in its entirety by a UK study.

Previously only the length of the Otodus megalodon had been estimated, but a team from the University of Bristol and Swansea University has determined the size of the rest of its body, including fins as large as an adult human.

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Conservationists say relaxing of regulations poses threat to welfare of minke whales

Demand for whale meat in Norway is rising after years of decline, although activists have warned the loosening of regulations could damage the welfare of the animals.

Norway remains one of only three countries to publicly allow commercial whaling, along with Japan and Iceland. Much of the catch is sent to Japan, where demand is high, but for the first time in years businesses have reported increased interest in eating whale meat domestically.

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The advance could help protect amphibians from extinction by protecting their breeding grounds.

Intermediaries have gone from playing practically no part in Australia’s carbon offset market to holding some 13% of domestic credits currently sitting in the national registry, according to data released by the Clean Energy Regulator, coinciding with a boom in voluntary carbon market demand.

Liberty condemns ‘unworkable restrictions, fines and arrests’ used by police to stifle rallies

Civil liberty experts have warned that peaceful protest is under threat in the UK after environmental campaigners were targeted with pre-emptive arrest and “unworkable restrictions” were placed on this week’s Extinction Rebellion (XR) demonstrations.

Thousands of people have taken to the streets this week to highlight the escalating climate emergency and demand urgent action from the government.

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