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Room of mining men at Queensland Resources Council luncheon cheer as they discover Morrison realises the value of coercion and intimidation just as much as they do.

The post Coercion is coal’s only friend appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Scientists are uncovering the secrets of a giant undersea rock shelf, parts of which lie four kilometres below the ocean's surface. James Dell, Post Doctoral Fellow, University of Tasmania Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Readers respond to the government’s announcement on fracking, suspecting that the Tories have merely temporarily halted an unpopular practice to gain some votes

Should we temper exultation with realism (Fracking banned in UK after government U-turn, 2 November)? Remember that politicians, even Conservative prime ministers, have a record of telling high-profile lies, especially in the run-up to an election. Remember David Cameron’s emphatic assurance that there would be no new Heathrow runway, “no ifs, no buts”, repeated several times before the 2010 general election? Boris Johnson, whose promises have frequently been shown to be false, knows fracking is unpopular in a number of Midlands and northern constituencies, including Conservative targets. He might well assure us that fracking will be banned, but in the longer term cite “changed circumstances” to reverse the pledge.
David Packham
Bath

• The government has suddenly halted fracking until “compelling new evidence is provided” that proves it is safe. I would wager that Andrea Leadsom will unveil said evidence the week after the marginal Midlands and northern constituencies, who are strongly against fracking, have voted in her colleagues. The government hasn’t “banned” anything. It has temporarily halted an unnecessary and unpopular practice to gain some votes.
Simon Richards
Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire

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As editor of the newly launched weekly Farming News, I found Simon Gourlay (Other Lives, 28 October) to be a refreshingly dynamic and reformist president of the National Farmers Union.

While he was still deputy president, in 1983, he agreed to brief our freshly appointed staff of some 25 journalists in a converted church in Knightsbridge, central London. Just as Simon entered the room, a thunderstorm broke and amid claps of thunder and shafts of lightning he looked the very prophet.

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They’re an eye-popping treat, but drought and the bulldozer have thinned their numbers. Now a coal plant and dam wall threaten their survival
• Cast your vote in bird of the year 2019 here

A few months ago, the bird-watching community in south-east Queensland went into a twitching frenzy. Two regent honeyeaters, a critically endangered species, had been discovered feeding on ironbark blossoms in the suburban heart of Springfield Lakes, on Brisbane’s south-western outskirts, near the satellite city of Ipswich.

The honeyeaters stayed for several weeks, spending the afternoons in a single, heavily flowering tree between a shopping village and childcare centre. When the blossom on that tree and the surrounding ironbarks began to dry up, they began feasting on lerps – tiny, sugary-tasting, sap-sucking insects which clung to the leaves of a small fig tree directly outside a coffee shop.

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Scientists say research on carbon capture was always better environmental option

Ministers have been condemned for wasting millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money in a failed attempt to introduce fracking to the UK. The bid also cost the nation a decade of effort that should have been expended on other, more environmentally friendly energy projects, scientists and activists claimed yesterday.

The criticisms were made in the wake of the government’s decision on Friday to impose a moratorium on fracking in the UK. A review published by the Oil and Gas Authority concluded it was impossible to predict the likelihood or scale of earthquakes triggered by fracking.

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It's there if you look...under the sea. But how would we know? Join Science Friction on a journey into the lost heart of Doggerland.

The actress and activist on why she's being arrested each week but not wanting to go to prison.

Swedish teenager needs help getting back to Europe following the COP25 meeting’s move from Chile to Spain

As delegates to the COP25 climate summit scramble to adjust to a last-minute change of venue from Santiago to Madrid, one of the highest-profile attendees has stuck out a metaphorical thumb on social media to ask for a lift across the Atlantic.

Teenage Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, who was speaking in California during a stop on her low-emissions journey from Sweden to Chile, tweeted that she was now in need of a ride to Spain.

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The party says a huge programme to fund household energy-saving would reduce bills and create jobs.

An oven for baking chocolate chip cookies is making its way to the International Space Station.

A tip from the public leads us to Katoomba in the Blue Mountains, on the trail of well-known mischief maker

• Cast your vote in bird of the year 2019 here

With their sharply curved grey beaks and talons, ear-splitting screech, snow-white feathers and crest flaring in a shock of yellow, sulphur-crested cockatoos are some of Australia’s most distinctive native birds.

They are also some of the nation’s smartest and most destructive. They are known to open the lids of wheelie bins, flicking rubbish everywhere while rummaging for food. They are notorious for destroying wooden window frames, decking or house fittings. They lop the tops off flowers, uproot seedlings, hollow out trees and generally make a big old mess. And they are loud.

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If we all understood the economic value of a transition to renewables, we could move from policy incoherence to hope

There is a chasm between a world that quickly breaks the link between modern economic growth and carbon emissions, and a world that fails to do so. The side of the chasm that we are now on is a dangerous place. It would be reckless beyond the normal human irrationality for us to stay where we are.

Australian prosperity and security, as well as our natural and human heritage, will be challenged in fundamental and perhaps unanswerable ways if humanity does not succeed in holding temperature increases below 2C and as close as possible to 1.5C. With only half the warming we can expect from 1.5C, we have already had to deal with dreadful impacts of more severe, earlier and more frequent bushfires; reduced flows into the Murray–Darling river system; degradation of the Great Barrier Reef; a shift to desalination to supply water for Perth; reduced moisture in our southern farming soils; and high tides lapping at the steps of the beach huts at Brighton in Victoria.

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Researchers say study dispels belief that state no longer has ‘real dingo’ populations

Almost all of the so-called wild dogs in New South Wales that are killed to protect livestock are actually dingoes or “dingo-dominant hybrids”, according to new research.

Researchers at the University of New South Wales said their DNA sampling project showed between 9% and 23% of the “wild dogs” in the state had only dingo ancestry, challenging a notion that most dingo populations had died out.

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António Guterres says Asian countries must use greener energy sources to tackle the climate crisis.

The new mine in Cumbria could create 500 jobs but protesters argue it will contribute to global warming.

Hollywood star says he's optimistic about the future because of climate activist's campaigning.

Jeremy Corbyn has said the decision to halt fracking in England with immediate effect is an election stunt. The Labour leader says he believes the moratorium will be lifted on 13 December, the day after the general election, if Boris Johnson's government is returned to office

• Jeremy Corbyn decries fracking suspension as election stunt

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Labour leader’s comments come after minister suggests halt may only be temporary

Calls are growing for the next government to make the suspension of fracking in England permanent after a minister suggested the halt to exploration may only be temporary.

The government announced an immediate moratorium on fracking on Friday in a major U-turn after the Oil and Gas Authority said in a report that it was unable to predict the magnitude of any earthquakes triggered by hydraulic fracturing NEW after one measured 2.9 on the Richter scale in August. NEW

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Environmentalist actor says first meeting with teenage climate activist was ‘an honour’

Leonardo DiCaprio has praised teenage climate change activist Greta Thunberg as a “leader of our time” following their first meeting.

DiCaprio, a prominent environmental campaigner, said 16-year-old Thunberg’s message should be a “wake-up call to world leaders everywhere that the time for inaction is over”.

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