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If there is an economic alternative now, there was one before – and we are all suffering from the failure to take it

Covid-19 isn’t just infecting humans. It’s also weakening ideology.

Think about Tina: the acronym popularised after Margaret Thatcher declared that “There is no alternative” to the market economy.

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Jet stream appears to have stopped moving south and may be moving back towards normal

International cooperation on ozone-depleting chemicals is helping to return the southern jet stream to a normal state after decades of human-caused disruption, a study shows.

Scientists say the findings prove there is the capacity to heal damaged climate systems if governments act promptly and in coordination to deal with the causes.

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Viruses such as Covid-19 wouldn’t emerge in food markets if it wasn’t for factory farming, globalised industry and rapid urbanisation

• Laura Spinney is the author of The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How it Changed the World

When I get stressed, a patch of annoying red eczema appears on the inside of my upper right arm. The doctor gives me some cream to rub on it, but I also know that to stop it coming back I have to deal with the underlying problem.

Too much information, you’re thinking, but let me make the analogy. The reason we shouldn’t call the Sars-CoV-2 virus causing global misery the “Chinese virus” is the same reason I shouldn’t blame my eczema on my upper arm: there is clearly a superficial weakness there, but the real cause lies elsewhere.

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The US federal government missed a deadline on Tuesday to challenge a court’s ruling that limits the EPA’s use of Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) compliance waivers, though refiners involved in the lawsuit will forge ahead with their own appeal.

The UK’s only EU Aviation Allowance (EUAA) auction of 2020 was cancelled on Wednesday, sale host ICE Futures Europe said, after bidding interest failed to exceed the amount of spot carbon units on offer.

The possibility of infection in great apes like gorillas warrants the utmost caution, say experts.

EU carbon prices raced to a one-week high early on Wednesday as markets were buoyed by US lawmakers agreeing a virus-busting stimulus package, but EUAs then fell back after buyers struggled to absorb a bumper auction.

Offshore windfarms and onshore projects in US and China fuel one of strongest years on record

The world’s wind power capacity grew by almost a fifth in 2019 after a year of record growth for offshore windfarms and a boom in onshore projects in the US and China.

The Global Wind Energy Council found that wind power capacity grew by 60.4 gigawatts, or 19%, compared with 2018, in one of the strongest years on record for the global wind power industry.

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Australia’s Clean Energy Regulator opened the latest two-day auction under the Emissions Reduction Fund on Wednesday, but with little indication of a resurgence in interest from project developers.

Solar, wind and hydro electric installations are often built in conservation areas.

New Zealand allowances edged up 30 cents in Wednesday trade after previously posting losses over six consecutive sessions, as some market participants said the rapid decrease had been an overreaction.

Auditor general predicts drought in 20 years as demand rises and climate crisis reduces supply

England is in danger of experiencing droughts within 20 years unless action is taken to combat the impact of the climate crisis on water availability, the public spending watchdog says.

The National Audit Office (NAO), in a report published on Wednesday, says some parts of England, especially the south-east, are at risk of running out of water owing to decreased rainfall and a need to cut the amount taken from natural waterways.

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A bubble has finally been burst – but will we now attend to the other threats facing humanity?

We have been living in a bubble, a bubble of false comfort and denial. In the rich nations, we have begun to believe we have transcended the material world. The wealth we’ve accumulated – often at the expense of others – has shielded us from reality. Living behind screens, passing between capsules – our houses, cars, offices and shopping malls – we persuaded ourselves that contingency had retreated, that we had reached the point all civilisations seek: insulation from natural hazards.

Now the membrane has ruptured, and we find ourselves naked and outraged, as the biology we appeared to have banished storms through our lives. The temptation, when this pandemic has passed, will be to find another bubble. We cannot afford to succumb to it. From now on, we should expose our minds to the painful realities we have denied for too long.

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Renowned scientist Terry Hughes says huge swathes of reef have been affected in a ‘severe’ situation

The Great Barrier Reef has experienced a third mass coral bleaching event in five years, according to the scientist carrying out aerial surveys over hundreds of individual reefs.

With three days of a nine-day survey to go, Prof Terry Hughes told Guardian Australia: “We know this is a mass bleaching event and it’s a severe one.”

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There is no longer time to take incremental action on climate change. What are the key actions policy makers must take in the next decade, and what’s needed to win the ‘fossil fuel word game’?

The post How to win the fossil fuel word game appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Bomen solar farm dodges delays affecting other projects and begins production more or less on schedule.

The post Big new solar farm in NSW begins production, more or less on schedule appeared first on RenewEconomy.

The Environment Protection Authority has fined Origin Energy Eraring Pty Ltd $15,000 over alleged dust emissions from the Eraring Power Station at Lake Macquarie in October last year.

The post Eraring power station fined over dust appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Biodiversity is often highest in places with human activity. The fishing industry has shown we can often have it both ways: maintain important livelihoods while protecting precious marine life. Piers Dunstan, Principal Research Scientist, CSIRO Natalie Dowling, Researcher, CSIRO Simone Stevenson, PhD Candidate, Deakin University Skipton Woolley, Research scientist, CSIRO Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

The Covid-19 pandemic has brought great uncertainty to the solar industry. Demand is up in some quarters, and down in others. But there is real fear of a brutal slowdown.

The post Solar Insiders Podcast: Can solar isolate itself from Covid-19 pandemic? appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Siemens and ubitricity have converted all the lamp posts on a central London residential street into "hidden" electric vehicle chargers.

The post Siemens converts all lamp posts on UK residential street to EV chargers appeared first on RenewEconomy.