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Election of Steve Marshall – and expectation he will be a vassal of Coalition in Canberra – likely to do more damage to country's renewable energy transition than that of his state. Jay Weatherill will be missed, but he leaves SA with huge momentum.

Five members have been reappointed to the Australian Heritage Council: the Hon Dr Kemp AC (chair), Dr Jane Harrington, Associate Professor Don Garden OAM, Dr Lyndon Ormond-Parker and Ms Rachel Perkins.

In part two of three-part series, we consider the question of firming variable renewable generation.

New SA Premier Steven Marshall vows to scrap Tesla's plans for world's biggest virtual power plant targeting low income households, in favour of a $100 million subsidy for those homes already with solar.

Clothing banks are disappearing from car parks at night, costing charities in lost revenue and bins

Clothing recycling bins are disappearing from supermarket and council car parks across the UK, costing the charities that should benefit from them hundreds of thousands of pounds, it is claimed.

According to the Textile Recycling Association, the UK’s trade association, 750 clothing banks have recently gone missing from all parts of the UK except Scotland. Some have been found, repainted with the logo of an organisation that is being investigated by the Charity Commission.

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Engineering practice assumes that floods are randomly distributed but science suggests they are not. This raises questions about the reliability of flood infrastructure and management strategies. Anthony Kiem, Associate Professor – Hydroclimatology, University of Newcastle Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Alice Mabin is the photographer and author of the upcoming book The Grower. It tells the story of agriculture in Australia, a difficult industry with isolated landscapes as a backdrop. She spent more than a year visiting 400 properties, shooting enterprises including sheep, beef, dairy and truffles to show what conditions were like for families who live in rural environments and the challenges they face

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New analysis suggests the targets contained in the National Energy Guarantee are actually worse than if the government did nothing.

Green Alliance says ending UK sales earlier would close climate target gap and halve oil imports

Ministers have been urged to bring forward their 2040 ban on new diesel and petrol car sales by a decade, a move which an environmental thinktank said would almost halve oil imports and largely close the gap in the UK’s climate targets.

The Green Alliance said a more ambitious deadline of 2030 is also needed to avoid the UK squandering its leadership on electric cars.

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Three pioneers who are shattering stereotypes surrounding the world of science and engineering.

Underwater sea walls and artificial islands among projects urgently required to avoid devastation of global flooding, say scientists

Scientists have outlined plans to build a series of mammoth engineering projects in Greenland and Antarctica to help slow down the disintegration of the planet’s main glaciers. The controversial proposals include underwater walls, artificial islands and huge pumping stations that would channel cold water into the bases of glaciers to stop them from melting and sliding into the sea.

The researchers say the work – costing tens of billions of dollars a time – is urgently needed to prevent polar glaciers melting and raising sea levels. That would lead to major inundations of low-lying, densely populated areas, such as parts of Bangladesh, Japan and the Netherlands.

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Waterways look cleaner but levels of new pollutants are not being monitored

Beer hasn’t been sold in steel cans for decades. The cans Keith Dopson found in Slough’s Salt Hill stream would be collectors’ items were they in good condition, but they had disintegrated into clumps of rust.

“We filled seven bin bags with rubbish,” he says. “Just from the river, not the banks. Plastic bottles and cans, lots of cans. Those steel ones must have been there for ages.”

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Comins Coch, Aberystwyth, Ceredigion The thaw has set in, and starlings are busy amid the last of the melting snow

Being west of the mountains, we missed the worst of the recent bout of snow – but the gale force easterly wind had a significant impact. Our house, tucked under the shoulder of the hill, is well sheltered from the usual winter winds that roar out of the south-west but the wide, open view of the hills to the east comes at a price.

A sudden ice-laden squall had driven me briefly outside to salvage some tumbling plant pots, when the steel cowl was wrenched from the top of the chimney. It missed me by fewer feet than I would have liked, and bounded off down the frozen garden with a sound reminiscent of a galvanised bucket being dropped down a flight of stone stairs.

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What does your world sound like? We asked, and you sent us earworms from planet earth. Close your eyes and take a trip.

A new book recounts developments in Aboriginal archaeology, and the insights that have emerged about ancient Australia.

Industrial sites have spent millions on carbon credits under Direct Action’s ‘safeguard mechanism’

Sixteen Australian industrial sites have breached government-imposed greenhouse gas emissions limits and had to buy millions of dollars in carbon credits to offset the infringement.

The breaches came despite big emitters being granted generous carbon limits, in many cases above their highest previous pollution levels.

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Meet the "mudlarkers" looking for archaeological artefacts along the banks of the Thames.

Holly Smith and Jenny Jones on why the government needs to urgently tackle air pollution. Brian Lowry discusses the threat posed by plastic bottles

The government needs to step up and provide clear messaging and leadership on charging clean air zones (Car industry should pay for UK’s toxic air, inquiry says, 15 March). About 40,000 premature deaths a year are attributable to air pollution; inaction simply cannot continue. The government’s own evidence identifies charging clean air zones as the most effective way to reduce levels of nitrogen dioxide in the shortest time possible. Despite this, they continue to be presented as a last resort, with little support given to the local authorities that are left to decide whether to implement them. The government should mandate charging clean air zones in areas where legal limits of air pollution are being broken.

Reducing all vehicular traffic in towns and cities is the best way to protect people’s health from the harmful effects of air pollution. Electric vehicles still release fine particulate matter, caused by the wear and tear of tyres and brake pads, which gets into our respiratory system and contributes to early death. Investing revenue from clean air zones in safe walking routes, cycling infrastructure and public transport is the best way to make the UK’s air breathable for us all.
Holly Smith
Policy coordinator, Living Streets

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• An estimated 20-30,000 elephants are killed by poachers each year

• UK was world’s largest legal ivory exporter between 2010 and 2015

A government minister has promised that the UK will lead a fight to shut down the ivory trade in the EU, describing the issue as “a personal priority” for the foreign secretary Boris Johnson.

Speaking at a conservation summit in Botswana, the Africa minister, Harriet Baldwin, said: “The UK will lead by example. We will be shutting down our ivory trade. We will be working with the EU to do the same. That is something we can do irrespective of whether we are in the European Union or not.”

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Footage from a documentary about the first polar bear cub to be born in the UK in the past 25 years has been released. The cub was born at the RZSS Highland Wildlife Park in Kincraig, Scotland. Before the first sighting this month, the birth – which took place a week before Christmas – had only been confirmed by high-pitched noises from the den

• Britain’s Polar Bear Cub airs Sunday at 7pm on Channel 4

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