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There’s plenty the public can do to help conservation, writes Austin Brady of the Woodland Trust

It’s not just in North America where ash trees face extinction (Report, 15 September). It’s now five years since ash dieback was first confirmed in the UK. The disease has now been recorded at more than 1,300 locations and is expected to kill many thousands of trees. The spread of emerald ash borer is already a growing concern in Europe. But positive steps are being taken. Planting more trees now, using a greater diversity of tree species, will help bolster the landscape against future losses. The Woodland Trust aims to plant 64 million trees over the next decade. The public can also help scientists detect the arrival of new pests. Observatree is a project by conservation bodies that has trained more than 200 volunteers UK-wide to do just that.
Austin Brady
Director of conservation, Woodland Trust

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My friend and colleague Duncan Huggett, who has died aged 52 of a brain tumour, kept his love of the natural world to the fore in his work with the RSPB, the Environment Agency and the Marine Conservation Society.

At the Environment Agency he was the man people turned to when flood risk management ran into conflict with conservation, and his work there was fundamental in establishing a solid scientific base for future investments in natural flood management.

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Schools in capital worst affected by air pollution are in most socially deprived areas with high levels of obesity, finds study

Tens of thousands of the poorest children in London are facing a cocktail of health risks including air pollution, obesity and poverty that will leave them with lifelong health problems, according to a new report.

The study found that schools in the capital worst affected by the UK’s air pollution crisis were also disproportionately poor, with high levels of obesity.

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The human-waste bomb recently found clogging up a London sewer has an unlikely admirer – a Scottish renewable energy company

For a 130-tonne mass of grease, bound as hard as concrete by thousands of tampons, wipes and used tissues, the Whitechapel fatberg is in surprisingly high demand.

Last week, the Museum of London announced it wants to display a chunk of the human-waste bomb, recently unearthed in east London, as a way “to raise questions about how we live today”. Now, a Scottish biodiesel company is taking a piece to turn into fuel.

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The ambitious goal of limiting global warming to 1.5C is still within reach, a study indicates.

Could the hefty price tag to keep Liddell open prevent it from ever happening?

Better data would reassure consumers that price changes are the result of real problems, such as weather or machinery failure, rather than market manipulation.

Claxton, Norfolk Though I admire – and fear – spiders, I love bumblebees. To see this one so enmeshed required an effort of will not to intervene

I saw them as I went to the bin. In the web of a female garden cross spider, a worker common carder bee hung upside down. The two were plainly engaged in combat and I crouched to observe the drama more closely.

Yet there were more emotions at play in this encounter than mere curiosity. For although I admire spiders, I absolutely love bumblebees. To see this insect so enmeshed and at risk of being eaten required an effort of my will not to intervene. In his gloriously funny 1950 book The Spider, John Crompton admitted that he freed bees from webs without further ado.

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Liddell coal generator visit reveals a work-force that wants it to close. Even betting agencies are punting on its closure.

In Tal Klein’s new novel, The Punch Escrow, humans have successfully tackled disease and climate change, but powerful corporations control everything.

Two new live graphs show renewable energy share and energy emissions in each state. Rooftop solar is lowering emissions significantly during the day.

Queensland's Western Downs Region continues large-scale solar boom, with approval of 300MW battery ready Beelbee PV farm.

The window for staving off the worst of climate change is wider than we thought, but still pretty narrow.

Redflow gets second major order within months for its zinc bromine batteries for application on remote, Pacific Island sites.

New data has revealed the latest ranking of Australia's top 10 solar postcodes, including three new entries from Victoria, and one each from WA and NSW.

Huge 6MW solar upgrade at Brisbane Airport will supply 18% of electricity needs and save around $1m a year on energy bills.

Increased power production with single-phase inverters and new three-phase inverters for cost-effective larger PV systems

The Australian's story linking excessive renewable energy subsidies to the Moree solar farm, a rich Saudi playboy and the singer Rihanna is very interesting. It is also hopelessly wrong (at least on the renewables bit).

A new ReachTEL poll, commissioned by The Australia Institute’s Climate and Energy Program, asked residents of the electorates of Hunter and Shortland about energy policy, including government investment in coal, renewables and the Liddell coal power station.

CBL Markets today announced it has signed an implementation agreement pursuant to which it will acquire a controlling interest in the Australian water exchange, H2OX Markets Limited.