Around The Web

With 99% of green sea turtles in the northern Great Barrier Reef hatching as females due to changing climate, the future for this species now depends largely on effective global conservation measures. Rita Caldas Patricio, Postdoctoral research fellow, University of Exeter Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Corporate energy retailer Flow Power inks 10-year PPA to supply Melbourne-based manufacturer with electricity sourced from Victoria's Ararat wind farm.

Our cultural practices help define us, but when the mood of the world is against us, what do we do? 

With some of Australia's offshore oil and gas structures starting to reach retirement age, there are hopes that decommissioning could signal a new boom for the sector.

Human body lice, rather than rat fleas, spread plague during the Black Death, a study simulating the outbreak suggests.

Last year was a vicious one for climate and energy politics. And with a South Australian election and various other federal decisions in the offing, 2018 looks like being similarly rancorous. Marc Hudson, PhD Candidate, Sustainable Consumption Institute, University of Manchester Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Campaigners say London mayor has fudged a similar manifesto promise to divest the city’s remaining pension funds from fossil fuels

London has been put to shame by New York’s decision to divest city pension funds from fossil fuel companies, according to climate campaigners who accuse the mayor, Sadiq Khan, of fudging a similar promise he made during his election campaign.

Global efforts to drive investment away from oil, gas and coal were given a major boost last week when the biggest city in the US announced plans to sell off its $5bn holdings in fossil fuel assets and sue the world’s most powerful oil companies over their contribution to dangerous global warming.

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Model penguins have appeared in cities around the world as part of a new Greenpeace campaign that is aiming to turn a huge tract of the Antarctic Ocean into the world’s biggest wildlife reserve, protecting marine life and helping to fight climate change

• World’s biggest wildlife reserve planned for Antarctica in global campaign

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Food Standards Agency reports ‘significant increase’ of harmful pathogen campylobacter in British-farmed chickens

Chickens for sale in Britain’s supermarkets are showing record levels of superbugs resistant to some of the strongest antibiotics, new research from the government has found.

The results are concerning because resistance to antibiotics among livestock can easily affect resistance among humans, rendering vital medicines ineffective against serious diseases.

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Vote on controversial method will be closely watched in the UK, which will decide on the issue as part of national fishing policy after Brexit

Europe’s parliament will vote on Tuesday on the controversial issue of electric pulse fishing, in a debate that could decide the future of the fishing method.

The debate is crucial for the UK, despite Brexit, because the UK’s fleets have yet to decide whether to lobby the government post-Brexit for an expansion in pulse fishing. Tuesday’s debate and vote will give an indication of both current scientific advice on the issue, and the strength of public opinion.

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Fuel from the Sanchi has spread over more than 100 sq km and could badly damage marine life.

Higher temperatures increase the number of people seeking asylum in the EU

The refugee crisis – particularly in the Mediterranean area – has received large amounts of new attention in the past few years, with people fleeing from Syria and entering the European Union emblematic of the problem. There has been some research connecting this refugee problem with changes to the climate. In particular, the years preceding the Syrian refugee crisis were characterized by a severe drought that reduced farm output and led to economic and social strife there.

Separating out the influences of climate change from general social instability may be impossible, because they are intimately linked. But we do know that climate change can cause social and economic instability. We also know that these instabilities can boil over into larger problems that lead to mass exodus. The problem isn’t knowing the connection between climate and refugees exists – rather the problem is quantifying it.

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Exclusive: Many of the country’s most famous ancient sites, from Holyrood Park to the Neolithic village of Skara Brae, need urgent protection, say experts

Dozens of Scotland’s most famous historic sites are at very high risk of being badly damaged by climate change and need urgent protection, an expert survey has found.

Historic Environment Scotland (HES), the agency which oversees nearly 340 of the country’s most important castles, abbeys, Neolithic sites and ruins, has for the first time issued red warnings for nearly a fifth of its sites and put amber, high risk warnings against another 70%.

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Claxton, Norfolk: It was as if the field had uprooted and their calls were the landscape itself in full clamour

On any walk to the marsh I’m always struck how, with a single click of the closing door, the entire audible routine of the house interior – the ticking clock, the even hum of the central heating and fridge, the slow breathing of all that other civilised stuff – is washed away instantly by the sound tide of the outdoors.

What we perhaps require as animals is release from that atmospheric certainty. Being outdoors permits an immersion in the unending and endlessly unpredictable music of nature, which the musician and naturalist Bernie Krause, in his book The Great Animal Orchestra, calls the “biophony”. Perhaps it is this that restores the default settings of our species. We have been attuned to the Earth’s wild song for 100,000 generations; why should we cease to want or need it after just 10 spent mainly indoors?

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The planned investment is significantly higher than the previously announced target of $4.5bn by 2020

Ford Motor Co will significantly increase its planned investments in electric vehicles to $11bn by 2022 and have 40 hybrid and fully electric vehicles in its model line-up, the company’s chairman, Bill Ford, said on Sunday at the Detroit auto show.

The investment figure is sharply higher than a previously announced target of $4.5bn by 2020, Ford executives said, and includes the costs of developing dedicated electric vehicle architectures.

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New Colorado wind farms with batteries are now cheaper than running old coal plants.

China-Australia renewables developer Maoneng to sell output of 200MW Sunraysia Solar Farm to UNSW, in landmark "tripartite" deal backed by Origin.

If 2017 was a year of price shocks and renewables investment, we expect 2018 to be more cagey. That said, bids in America for wind plus storage at $US21/MWh is not a bad start!

NT calls for expressions of interest to develop battery storage system of 25-45MW to support grid in Darwin and Katherine.

2017 saw almost 1.1 GW of rooftop PV installed and at least another 0.1 GW of PV above 100kW commissioned. What's in store for 2018?