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Australia’s east coast is recovering from a weekend of wild winds, waves and flooding, caused by a weather pattern known as an East Coast Low. Tragically, several people have died in flooding.

Parts of New South Wales have received more than 400mm of rain since Friday morning. Some places such as Canberra and Forster recorded their wettest June day on record. Waves have also caused severe coastal erosion and damaged property.

East Coast Lows are a type of low-pressure system or cyclone that occur on the Australian east coast. They are not uncommon, with about seven to eight lows a year causing widespread rainfall along the east coast, particularly during late autumn and winter. An East Coast Low in April last year caused similar damage.

But whenever they happen they raise the question: did climate change play a role?

Good news?

Climate models suggest that the cyclones that move through the global mid-latitudes, around 30° to 50°S, are moving south. This is contributing to long-term declines in winter rainfall in southwestern Australia and parts of southeast Australia.

These models also suggest that the atmospheric conditions that help East Coast Lows form could decline by between 25% and 40% by the end of the century.

In recent work, my colleagues and I looked even more closely at how climate change will affect individual East Coast Lows.

Our results also found East Coast Lows are expected to become less frequent during the cool months May-October, which is when they currently happen most often.

But there is no clear picture of what will happen during the warm season. Some models even suggest East Coast Lows may become more frequent in the warmer months.

And increases are most likely for lows right next to the east coast – just the ones that have the biggest impacts where people live.

This chart shows how the frequency of East Coast Lows could change by 2080 across May-October (left) and November-April (right). Red indicates fewer storms, while blue indicates more. Crosses show high agreement between climate models. What about the big ones?

The results in the studies I talked about above are for all low-pressure systems near the coast – about 22 per year, on average.

But it’s the really severe ones that people want to know about, like the current event, or the storm that grounded tanker Pasha Bulker in Newcastle in June 2007.

These storms are much rarer, which makes it harder to figure out what will happen in the future. Most of the models we looked at had no significant change projected in the intensity of the most severe East Coast Low each year.

Warming oceans provide more moisture, so intense rainfall is expected to increase by about 7% for each degree of global warming. East Coast Lows are no different – even during the winter, when East Coast Lows are expected to become less frequent, the frequency of East Coast Lows with heavy rain is likely to increase.

Finally, even though there may be fewer East Coast Lows, they are occurring in an environment with higher sea levels. This means that many more properties are vulnerable to storm surges and the impact of a given storm surge is that much worse.

Was it climate change?

While the frequency of cool-season East Coast Lows looks likely to decrease in the future, changes in the big ones are a lot less certain.

However, East Coast Lows are very variable in frequency and hard to predict. So far, there hasn’t been any clear trend in the last 50 years, although East Coast Lows may have been more frequent in the past.

As for extreme rainfall, studies have found little influence of climate change on Australian extreme rainfall so far. Climate variability, such as El Niño, currently plays a much larger role. This doesn’t mean climate change is having no effect; it just means it’s hard to tell what impact a warming world is having at this stage.

So did climate change cause this weekend’s storms? No: these events, including intense ones, often occur at this time of year.

But it is harder to rule out climate change having any influence at all. For instance, what is the impact of higher sea levels on storm surges? And how much have record-warm sea temperatures contributed to rainfall and storm intensity?

We know that these factors will become more important as the climate system warms further – so as the clean-up begins, we should keep an eye on the future.

Acacia Pepler receives funding from the Australian Research Council

Blencathra, Lake District In the whole time I tread its slopes and ridges this evening, I don’t see another soul

In a bright, breeze-ruffled Derwentwater, a shoal of swimmers moves towards the shore. Dozens of wet-suited arms arc rhythmically above the water like small sea serpents, churning the lake as they go. A gauzy light filters down through high streaks of cirrus and ranks of towering cumulus look like smoke thrown up over the fells from a giant cannon salvo.

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Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 9 June 1916

June 8
“I came across six dead herons tied to a tree in the Goyt Valley,” writes a friend of mine. Some of them were quite young, evidently not having left the nest, and all had been killed about the same time. One reader of the “Manchester Guardian,” if he sees this note, will be especially annoyed; he has watched the birds here for years, even before he was certain that a small heronry had been established. Now some law-breaking keeper or water bailiff has apparently waited until the young birds were hatched to murder the whole brood; it was on the Cheshire side, and the heron is a protected bird in Cheshire. Much good protection seems to be! The sportsman, or the sportsman’s agents, appear to care nothing about the law, unless a sportsman of another type, usually called a poacher, is the offender.

The object of wild bird protection was to prove that wild birds were public or rather national property, but probably the excuse would be that it does not matter in war-time. Many of our finest sportsmen, however, have refused to preserve game during the war, but they, or at any rate some of them, observe the law and protect the scheduled birds.

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Scientists in the United States are trying to grow human organs inside pigs.

US scientists try to grow human organs inside pigs to solve the transplant shortage by injecting human stem cells into pig embryos.

Western Australia Department of Fisheries sets drum lines to catch and kill shark reported to be be between three and six metres long

A great white shark suspected of killing a 60-year-old diver in Perth’s north is being hunted.

The woman was diving with a 43-year-old man one kilometre offshore from Mindarie marina just before midday on Sunday when she was mauled.

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Drink containers are the biggest contributors to rubbish in Australia. Litter image from www.shutterstock.com

Australians are serial wasters. For every 1,000 square metres (or about four tennis courts), Australians litter about 49 pieces of rubbish. The biggest culprits are drink containers, making up five of the top nine recorded pieces of litter by volume.

One way to reduce this litter is to refund people when they deposit drink containers for recycling through container deposit recycling (CDR) schemes. South Australia and the Northern Territory have CDR schemes. In May this year, New South Wales Premier Mike Baird announced a CDR scheme for his state, to begin in July 2017.

Under the scheme most drink containers over 150ml will be eligible for a 10c refund through state-wide depots and reverse vending machines. This has re-ignited an ongoing debate, largely driven by the drinks industry, which – as previously debated on The Conversation - vociferously opposes these schemes.

Refunds work

As part of the NSW process, we at BehaviourWorks Australia at Monash University recently reviewed research and data from 47 examples of CDR schemes or trials around the world. This work was commissioned by, but independent of, the NSW Environment Protection Authority.

The 47 CDR schemes recovered an average of 76% of drink containers. In the United States, beverage container recovery rates for aluminium, plastic and glass in the 11 CDR states are 84%, 48% and 65% respectively, compared with 39%, 20% and 25% in non-CDR states. The figures are similar in South Australia, one of the longest-running CDR schemes in the world: 84%, 74% and 85% for cans, plastic and glass compared with national averages of 63%, 36% and 36%.

Some CDR schemes donate the refund to charity, but people are more likely to return a container for a refund. And the greater the refund, the greater the return rates. Most schemes refund 5-10c; the 11 schemes in Canadian provinces include those with refund rates as high as 40c for glass containers over 1 litre in Saskatchewan.

CDR schemes reduce litter overall. Data from seven US states show 69–83% reductions in container waste and 30–47% reductions in overall waste.

Finally, government CDR schemes are sustainable. The 40 government schemes worldwide have operated for an average of 24.8 years and all except two are still going.

Industry opposition

CDR schemes work, so why do they face continued opposition from the drinks industry?

The first major argument against is cost – to the public, to producers, to jobs and to government via, for example, a reduction in alcohol tax revenues due to reduced sales.

We found little published evidence to support these claims. The few studies identified were either funded by the beverage industry or theoretical arguments without any empirical data. Manufacturers and consumers will share the costs of the NSW CDR scheme, with consumers paying an estimated A$30 into the scheme annually should they not redeem any deposits.

The most robust cost data, the Packaging Impacts Decision Regulation Impact Statement, was prepared for the Australian government in 2014. This found that CDR schemes were more expensive than other packaging recovery and recycling options, but reduced litter the most.

The question of whether the cost is worth the return is an important aspect of the debate, and one that should be considered not just by the beverage industry but by all stakeholders, including the wider community.

Can industry do the job?

The second argument against government CDR schemes is that industry can recycle containers itself. Examples to support this argument are sparse and unconvincing.

In 2010, Coca-Cola launched a reverse vending machine scheme in Dallas Fort-Worth, Texas, with a target of 3 million beverage containers recycled per month. The scheme folded in October 2014, having achieved roughly a quarter of this target.

PepsiCo’s ongoing Dream Machine initiative of college-based reverse vending machines commenced in April 2010 with the goal of increasing the US beverage container recycling rate from 34% to 50% by 2018. It reported collection of over 93 million containers by 2012. Although an impressive-sounding yield, achieving the target of a 50% recycling rate would require multiplying this effort 400-fold.

These examples illustrate that industry-based CDR schemes appear either unsustainable or lack realistic targets.

Replacing recycling?

Thirdly, it is argued that CDR schemes will cannibalise existing kerbside recycling programs. The evidence suggests that the effect, if any, is the reverse – marginal increases in kerbside recycling have been noted following introduction of CDR legislation.

This may be linked to the “spillover effect” where people are more likely to do one thing if they are already doing something similar. The data from CDR schemes suggest that people may be more inclined to use kerbside recycling simply by buying a drink with a container deposit, not just getting the refund. As an example, South Australia’s overall recycling rate in 2008–2009 was 67%, against a national average of 51%.

Behavioural research also tells us that convenience is a major factor in CDR schemes, particularly how close collections are to people’s homes. Vending machines are perceived as convenient but data on whether they work are mixed.

There is also robust evidence that clean environments are likely to remain cleaner (than otherwise would be the case) and that littered environments are likely to attract more litter.

This underlines the findings from research that CDR schemes not only increase beverage container recycling, but reduce litter. Ongoing CDR debate should be informed by research evidence and involve all stakeholders in this multifaceted issue.

BehaviourWorks Australia received funding for this commissioned review from the NSW Environment Protection Authority. This funding was paid to Monash University, not any of the authors personally.

BehaviourWorks Australia received funding for this commissioned review from the NSW Environment Protection Authority. This funding was paid to Monash University, not any of the authors personally.

BehaviourWorks Australia received funding for this commissioned review from the NSW Environment Protection Authority. This funding was paid to Monash University, not any of the authors personally.

Huge swells and strong winds batter the New South Wales coastline in Australia, causing flooding and dangerous conditions in Sydney and the surrounding areas. Evacuation notices have been issued in areas including Lismore, the Cooks River and Chipping Norton amid heavy rainfall, with the stormy conditions set to continue into Monday

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AAP/Paul Miller

With an unprecedented storm flooding large population centres on Australia’s east coast over the weekend, you would be forgiven for thinking politicians on the campaign trail might pause to reflect on climate change.

On the other side of the world, France and much of west and northern Europe are also experiencing extensive floods. They are unprecedented in the speed at which they have deluged cities and communities.

Climate change did not overdetermine these floods in Australia and Europe. But, it has super-charged their intensity and speed in a way that would make them rare in the past.

The weather patterns are complex, but the climate change part of the science is less so. Every 1℃ increase in global average temperature means the atmosphere can hold 7% more water vapour. This means that when moist air condenses into rainfall, it is capable of coming down for much longer and in much greater volume than it did in pre-industrial times.

Climate change is not about some kind of linear increase in temperature. It is about an increase in energy in the climate system that produces extremes – in drought, storms, wind, heatwaves and floods. Floods are just one of the expressions of the violence of the excess energy.

Analysis from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, published last year and reported in the New York Times, showed record-breaking rainfall has increased 12% from 1980 to 2010 compared to the previous 80 years. In Europe, the increase was 31%. This is because the northern hemisphere temperature anomalies are so much greater than the south.

In France, the floods are getting attention as they are affecting globally recognised public treasures such as artwork at the Louvre and Musee d’Orsay. Paris hasn’t experienced a flood of this magnitude in more than 30 years, and certainly not one that has accumulated at the speed of this one.

This has moved French President Francois Hollande to link the flood to climate change, only six months after the climate summit held in Paris last December.

But, in Australia, at the midway point of an election campaign, the leaders of the major parties failed to mention our floods. Malcolm Turnbull aired the hang-up he shares with Bill Shorten about avoiding a hung parliament to shore up their own political power.

Ironically, a hung parliament might lead to power-sharing with the one party likely to drive effective action on climate – the Greens.

The Great Barrier Reef visits Australian voters

At a time when some are “reef-stricken” about the pending loss of coral at one of the world’s greatest natural wonders, many are oblivious to the seriousness of the bleaching process. While Environment Minister Greg Hunt would like to take credit for management of the Great Barrier Reef, the greatest palpable threat to the reef is warming sea-surface temperatures.

Just days after it was revealed the Australian government had lobbied for the removal of an entire chapter on the reef from a UN report, Hunt applauded his own management of the reef.

With the current floods, we are now seeing the hangover from the record sea surface temperatures that emerged in the last six months. This has devastated 93% of the reef.

But the leaders appear to be afraid of any kind of contest, let alone one on climate change. Last week’s highly scripted leaders’ debate largely dodged climate change, despite persistent questioning from Financial Review journalist Laura Tingle.

There is a growing indication that voters are taking extreme weather into their deliberations around climate policy. Even though mainstream media is notoriously bad at linking extreme weather to climate change, which is taboo for many Coalition MP’s, voters make this link themselves simply by experiencing it on an ever-more regular basis.

Even Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce, one of the eight-member kill-the-carbon-tax group that met every week in Cory Bernardi’s office, is having second thoughts. A feature article in the Sydney Morning Herald had him questioning his faith in Coalition groupthink.

After visiting his parents parched landholding in Rutherglen, Joyce declared:

I start to wonder whether climate change might really be happening.

This phenomena is an example of what 350.org founder Bill McKibben said at the end of what he regarded as a failed climate summit in Paris. Without an effective agreement, there is only one negotiation that remains: with physics itself. And physics actually holds all the cards.

As voters confront the physics or – put another way – extreme weather visits upon us, climate change becomes depoliticised.

But, in ignoring the physics, the cowardly climate stance that the major party leaders have taken is likely to backfire. Both leaders set out from the position that climate change has become so politicised that swinging voters are more likely to change their voter intention on other issues such as “jobs and growth”, education and hospitals.

A telling statistic here comes from three weeks of data collected by the ABC’s Vote Compass. 63% of the 250,000 respondents now want to see a price on carbon in Australia, compared to 50% in 2013.

But, more significantly, the shift was most marked in Coalition voters. There is a 13% increase in those wanting a price on carbon (41% agree, 22% are neutral).

These figures have prompted former Liberal leader John Hewson to challenge the idea that the Coalition’s 2013 campaign to “axe the tax” won it the last election.

As the Mona Lisa makes its way to higher ground, and Australians are asked to stay indoors across four states, the reality of climate change continues to assert itself. While they may be in denial, politicians cannot dismiss climate change as an issue that comes and goes. It is here to stay for today’s voters and for every election to come.

The cruise line industry is booming. The bigger the boats, the larger the profits. But what, if any, are the engineering and environmental limits?

The cruise line industry is booming. The bigger the boats, the larger the profits. But what, if any, are the engineering and environmental limits?

David Cameron and Boris Johnson clash over the impact of the EU on the UK's fishing industry, during an interview with the BBC's Countryfile programme.

Campaigners hope the Thai temple raid will stir the world’s conscience – but the trafficking of tiger parts to China is a booming business

A week ago it cost 600 baht (£11.50) to visit the tiger temple in Thailand’s Kanchanaburi province, west of the capital, Bangkok. Tourists moved by the spectacle of such splendid creatures living side by side with human beings could also pay the saffron-robed Buddhist monks an extra £15 to help feed the cubs, or to have their picture taken with an adult tiger’s head resting on their lap.

Along with nearly 250,000 people, Jay Z, Beyoncé and their daughter Blue Ivy posed with the animals last year, and marvelled that some of the world’s fiercest creatures could be so tame.

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The Flint disaster and other cities’ ‘cheating’ called criminal in nature by some, but scientists believe the remedies are fairly straightforward

A tragedy of widespread testing failures in US drinking water is that experts believe the remedies are fairly straightforward – if there is political will.

As the Guardian has revealed, at least 33 cities across 17 states have used water testing methods that regulators and experts have said may inaccurately reduce lead levels found in tests.

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Russell Reichelt says he has no problem with environmental lobbyists portraying the seriousness of the damage but a lot of the reef remains unscathed

The chairman of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, Russell Reichelt, has played down a report that said he accused activist scientists and lobby groups of distorting maps and data to misrepresent the extent of coral bleaching on the reef.

The authority withdrew from a joint announcement from the national coral bleaching taskforce about the extent of coral bleaching earlier in the week because Reichtel believed maps accompanying the research did not depict the full picture.

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Trawsfynydd, Gwynedd, Wales They are constantly in motion, dancing out of the gorge in undulating flight

Pont y Llyn Du on the Afon Gain, in the lonely moors east of Trawsfynydd, above the old gold mines at Gwynfynydd, is one of those places at which you’d never arrive except by design. It’s one of my favourite haunts in the Welsh hills.

The peaty hill stream rushes down through a miniature rocky gorge under the old humped bridge to debouch into a round pool of amber depth, encircled by green pastures. You can traverse through on rock ledges beneath the arch, plunge into the pool if you’re hardy and of the “wild swimming” persuasion. What most appeals to me are the spirits of the place.

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China is taking up renewable energy faster than any other country. It’s all on display in the Solar Valley.

Millions of shorebirds fly between Australasia and the Arctic every year. They navigate over oceans using stars and magnetic fields, they sleep with half their brain at a time while they're on the wing. But for some of them, this will be the last flight.

As Winter bites in the south, Tim Entwisle and Matthew Crawford investigate a late start to the north's dry season, birds that spread fire, a collision of accountancy and botany, and a warmer future for our only Winter-hibernating marsupial.

Four-year package, to be announced by Adam Bandt on Saturday, will allow the ventures to generate tax-free profits from the electricity created

The Greens will announce that they will spend $265.2m on community-owned renewable energy projects, including allowing these to generate tax-free profits from the electricity created.

The Greens energy spokesman, Adam Bandt, will announce the four-year package on Saturday in North Fitzroy at an apartment block seeking to establish a community-owned renewable project.

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