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Building nuclear power stations used to be an effective cover for nuclear weapons programs. So what is it now, with the credibility of nuclear power so very low?

The post Is the push for nuclear power a covert push for nuclear weapons? appeared first on RenewEconomy.

In Australia's climate policy void, an ever increasing number of corporations are stepping up to show leadership on this critical financial risk. IFM is the latest.

The post IFM Investors becomes latest asset manager to shun coal, align with Paris appeared first on RenewEconomy.

W.A. Garden Island Microgrid – a cornerstone project for wave power developer Carnegie Clean Energy – officially powers up, supplying solar and storage for Australia’s largest naval base.

The post Carnegie turns on Garden Island micro-grid, switches focus back to wave power appeared first on RenewEconomy.

ARENA spends $15 million to help fund the roll-out of 50 ultra fast EV charging stations by Evie Networks.

The post ARENA gives $15 million to Evie Networks for ultra fast charging network appeared first on RenewEconomy.

In the coming decade, billions could face a critical shortage of water. Here's what we can do about it.

Spider did not bite Kansas City woman Susie Torres, who woke up hearing a ‘bunch of swooshing and water in my ear’

A Kansas City woman woke one morning this week thinking she had water in her left ear. It turned out to be a highly venomous brown recluse spider.

Related: Experience: I was nearly killed by a spider bite

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Australia Institute argues that South Australia would receive few benefits and would be exposed to huge risks

The South Australian government needs to prepare itself for decades of subsidies if it wants to develop an offshore oil and gas industry in the Great Australian Bight, according to a new report.

Analysis by the progressive thinktank the Australia Institute draws on industry modelling to argue South Australia is unlikely to receive any noticeable benefit from tax payments as a result of oil and gas production in the Bight, with the benefits mostly flowing to the commonwealth. It says in the exploration phase, production would be minimal, paying no royalties or taxes.

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If we can’t sort out recyclable plastic from non-recyclable, we should incinerate waste, says David Reed, while Janet Poliakoff responds to criticism of Amazon using plastic bags

Westminster councillor Tim Mitchell draws attention to a key issue in the plastics recycling debate: contamination by “wrong items”, such as the compostable bags now becoming widely used by the Guardian, Waitrose and others (Letters, 24 August).

As he says, just one or two such bags can contaminate an entire batch and even I, a former journalist working in the plastics sector, find it hard to be certain of the exact composition of many of the bags I receive.

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An estimated 100 million sharks are killed every year, many for shark fin soup.

The plastic waste collected from one beach is "the tip of the iceberg", the artist says.

Trail use near Vail, Colorado, has more than doubled since 2009. It’s had a devastating impact on a herd of elk

Biologists used to count over 1,000 head of elk from the air near Vail, Colorado. The majestic brown animals, a symbol of the American west, dotted hundreds of square miles of slopes and valleys.

But when researchers flew the same area in February for an annual elk count, they saw only 53.

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Leaders must ask themselves if Jair Bolsonaro’s destructive attitude to the forest and its peoples should be considered a crime

When G7 leaders sit in judgment on Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro this weekend, the question they should ask themselves is whether the rape of the natural world should finally be treated as a crime. The language of sexual violence will be familiar to the former army captain, who publicly admires the sadistic torturers of the dictatorship era and once said to a congresswoman, “I would never rape you because you are not worth it.” Last month, after Pope Francis and European leaders expressed concern about the Amazon, Bolsonaro lashed back by claiming: “Brazil is a virgin that every foreign pervert desires.”

As a nationalist, the president sees the Amazon in terms of ownership and sovereignty. As a chauvinist, he sees the region as a possession to be exploited and opened up, rather than cherished and nurtured.

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The 150 sq km field of floating rock was created by an underwater volcanic eruption near Tonga

A giant raft of pumice, which was spotted in the Pacific and is expected to make its way towards Australia, could help the recovery of the Great Barrier Reef from its bleaching episode by restocking millions of tiny marine organisms, including coral.

The pumice raft, which is about 150 sq km, was produced by an underwater volcano near Tonga. It was first reported by Australian couple Michael Hoult and Larissa Brill, who were sailing a catamaran to Fiji, on 16 August.

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Cuadrilla reports ‘mico-seismic event’ at Preston New Road facility on Saturday night

A tremor measuring 2.1 on the Richter scale has been recorded at the UK’s only active fracking site – the largest detected at the facility.

The energy firm Cuadrilla said the “micro-seismic event” at its site near Blackpool occurred at 11.01pm on Saturday.

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The battlelines are drawn, brains tuned, arguments sharpened and teeth gnashing as two teams go head to head at the BeakerStreet@TMAG festival at Hobart's Tasmanian Museum & Art Gallery for National Science Week. Your fearless adjudicator, Science Friction host Natasha Mitchell, cannot and will not be bribed*. (*Except with wombats).

Government has pledged to improve environment record, but European report shows no progress defending designated habitats

The UK is failing to meet its international obligations to protect its most important wildlife sites and vulnerable species, and now lags behind most other EU countries on key criteria, according to figures posted online by the European Environment Agency.

With the environment high on the agenda at the G7 summit in Biarritz this weekend, the data will be an embarrassment to ministers who have repeatedly pledged to protect the environment – despite imposing savage cuts on England’s statutory nature conservation agency, Natural England.

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The international Cites wildlife summit in Geneva is cracking down on the trade in threatened creatures this month

African elephants play a key role in shaping landscapes, dispersing seeds and providing other species with access to water. Though several populations already receive protection from trade, those in Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe are currently excluded from the Conference on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) appendix I, which offers the greatest level of protection. This month’s conference should see all African elephants added to the list.

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The journalist and author on the climate crisis and how the US and China will be key to averting disaster

David Wallace-Wells is the deputy editor of New York magazine. In July 2017, he wrote a long-form essay about the dire prospects for human civilisation caused by the climate crisis. It became the most read article in the history of the magazine and led to a book, The Uninhabitable Earth: A Story of the Future, which is being published in paperback in September.

The first line of your book states: “It is worse, much worse, than you think.” If you were sitting down to write the book again, would you be inserting another “much” into that sentence?
I still think the public aren’t as concerned as they should be about some of the scary stuff that’s possible this century. But I do think things have changed quite a bit. And I also think the politics have changed quite a lot. When I turned in the book in September, nobody had heard of Greta Thunberg. Nobody had heard of Extinction Rebellion. In the US, very few people had heard of Sunrise. And Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had not even been elected.

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Berkeley City Council bans gas in new residential buildings. Transport, the biggest source of GHG emissions in California, is next in line for restrictions and/or conversion to electric.

The post Another first: City of Berkeley bans natural gas in new buildings appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Cambridge punting idyll disguises crisis in flow of chalk streams, campaigners warn

It’s a beautiful day on the river Cam in Cambridge. As the sun sparkles on the water at Jesus Green lock, tourists line up for ice-cream and prepare to take a punt around the university’s most celebrated colleges. Few notice how pathetic the flow of water is over the lock.

It is a clear sign that this ancient waterway is faring badly, says Stephen Tomkins, emeritus fellow and former head of the science faculty at Homerton College. “That little bit running through here is the total flow from the whole of south Cambridgeshire,” he says, pointing at an unimpressive trickle. There just is not enough water, he adds: “The river Cam is drying up.”

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