Around The Web

The Australian Government is considering a proposal to streamline regulation of trade in wildlife listed on the CITES of Wild Fauna and Flora. Invitation to comment closes 31 August 2015.

A newly unearthed missive from Lenny Bernstein, a climate expert with the oil firm for 30 years, shows concerns over high presence of carbon dioxide in enormous gas field in south-east Asia factored into decision not to tap it

ExxonMobil, the world’s biggest oil company, knew as early as 1981 of climate change – seven years before it became a public issue, according to a newly discovered email from one of the firm’s own scientists. Despite this the firm spent millions over the next 27 years to promote climate denial.

The email from Exxon’s in-house climate expert provides evidence the company was aware of the connection between fossil fuels and climate change, and the potential for carbon-cutting regulations that could hurt its bottom line, over a generation ago – factoring that knowledge into its decision about an enormous gas field in south-east Asia. The field, off the coast of Indonesia, would have been the single largest source of global warming pollution at the time.

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Habitat loss is seen as the primary threat to at-risk species but recovery plans avoid addressing it and governments have entrenched the extinction process

Successive Australian governments have failed to protect the habitat of the country’s most endangered creatures, with 90% of the 120 most endangered animals having no safeguards to prevent the loss of their homes, a new study has found.

An analysis by environmental groups of the official recovery plans for Australia’s endangered wildlife has discovered that just 12 of the 120 most endangered animals were covered by plans that placed limits on the future loss of their habitat.

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The Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder and SAMDB NRM Board today announced the signing of a partnership agreement that will see environmental water delivered to key floodplains and wetlands along the River Murray in South Australia.

Arctic activists Marc Cornelissen and Philip de Roo’s last expedition ended tragically in April when they fell through thinning ice. Fellow environmental campaigner Ruth Dawkins recalls the vital work and warm spirits of her inspirational friends

In April of this year, two Dutch polar explorers, Marc Cornelissen and Philip de Roo, set off from Resolute Bay in the Canadian Arctic. They were headed for Bathurst Island, a journey of 400km that was due to take around a month. This was part of the Last Ice Survey expedition to gather data about snow and ice thickness for York University, Ontario. They would walk and ski across a region known as the Last Ice Area, where summer sea ice is expected to be most resilient to climate change.

A few days into their trip, when they were still in Resolute Bay preparing for the hard month ahead, Philip found Marc’s sled from a previous unsuccessful expedition being used by a local hunter. In one of the many short voice recordings which they uploaded each day during their journey, Marc talks about what a special feeling it is to be back in the region and how pleased he is to be there with his trusted expedition partner Philip. “That [last expedition] was a failure, but if we make it there this time, it will be a beautiful contrast.”

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Veteran pilot tested to the limit of endurance on record-breaking solar-powered flight across the Pacific, on the eighth leg of round-the-world journey

A solar plane attempting the world’s first flight around the globe has landed in Hawaii, after breaking the record for the longest non-stop solo flight in history.

Solar Impulse 2, piloted by the Swiss pilot André Borschberg, took off from Nagoya in Japan at 3am on Monday, for the five-day crossing of the Pacific Ocean, the riskiest leg of its journey.

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TV presenter and naturalist Steve Backshall was asked by a British newspaper to write about the ‘invasion’ of jellyfish this summer. But they didn’t like what he had to say, so we’re publishing it here in full instead

While the sunshine may be an unpredictable visitor to UK summer shores, there’s one silly season certainty that you can count on. It’s an invasion striking terror into the hearts of humble Brits, causing widespread panic, forcing terrified tourists to abandon our seas and seek safer foreign waters. Yes, it’s the early summer newspaper headline, designed to get us all terrified of Mother Nature.

Whether it’s false widow spiders that leap from their webs and rot your flesh, vile sunspiders that inject novocaine into our British soldiers, rats the size of cows, man-eating foxes or a lone great white shark travelling across the Atlantic with the sole intent of savaging plucky Cornish surfers, testicle-munching pacu fish set to invade our seas … these genuine news stories have two things in common: they are factual nonsense, and they all contain the message that nature is evil, and she’s out to get you.

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The Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder today announced his decision to make water available to Victoria, South Australia and New South Wales for a multi-use environmental watering event in the River Murray.

Harmondsworth villagers say they will support direct action against any attempt to bulldoze 750 homes if government backs expansion

Community leaders in Harmondsworth, the village that would be largely flattened to make way for a third runway at Heathrow, have reacted with anger at Howard Davies’s recommendation that the plan should go ahead – and alleged they were “deceived” by the government.

Related: Davies report says new runway should be at Heathrow airport - Politics live

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Investment by the Australian and Queensland Governments, industry and the community in the Great Barrier Reef exceeds more than $485 million in 2014/15 alone.

National park authority backs plan to dig mile-deep shaft under protected moorland and tunnel 16km inland from coast, with promise of 1,000 jobs

A small corner of one of Britain’s most stunning national parks will be dug up to make way for a £1.7bn potash mine after locals were wooed with promises of more than 1,000 jobs – and the idea of restoring the proud mining heritage of the north-east of England.

After a four-year planning wrangle, members of the North York Moors National Park Authority were cheered on Tuesday when they narrowly gave the green light to UK firm Sirius Minerals – via its subsidiary York Potash – to dig a mile-deep shaft under heavily protected moorland overlooking Whitby and Robin Hood’s Bay.

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The Minister has approved the inclusion of eight species to various categories effective 26 June 2015.

Catching up with Jamie Golley-Bogaerts, CEO of Sustainability House after one of our Spotlight events.

sustainabilityhouse.com.au

Sustainability House is one of Australia’s leading ESD companies offering energy efficiency modelling, simulation and design advice for both commercial and residential buildings. Sustainability House has offices in Adelaide, Melbourne and Perth and has experience working across all states and territories of Australia. Sustainability House works closely with architects, builders, manufacturers and suppliers, government bodies and developers to provide innovative solutions for the built environment.

Cast: AdelaideSBN

Tags: AdelaideSBN, Adelaide, Sustainability and Sustainable Design

After two years of recording the surprising relationship between a baby giant armadillo and its mother, scientists have found the juvenile dead in the Brazilian Pantanal.

For almost two years, Alex the giant armadillo has been the most famous of his little-known and cryptic species. Born in June of 2013, photos and videos of Alex appeared across the global media, including the BBC, National Geographic and Mongabay. From Alex and his mother, Isabelle, researchers learned that giant armadillos are far more parental and familial than long believed.

Two weeks ago, researchers found Alex dead.

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As part of its campaign against an open-cut coalmine expansion, a NSW community collective has funded and produced this video profiling 65-year-old Kevin Taggart, an elder of the local Wonnarua traditional custodians. Bulga residents, alongside the custodians, have been fighting for more than five years to stop the expansion by Rio Tinto. They say it will create severe noise and dust pollution, destroy a critically endangered woodland and threaten 110 registered Aboriginal cultural sites. A final decision is expected within weeks.

This video was made by the campaign collective, Our Land Our Water Our Future Continue reading...

Ross Harding:

Founder and Executive Director of Finding Infinity.

Principal of Sustainability of BESTEC Melbourne.

After studying Mechanical Engineering and Finance at the University of Adelaide, Ross snuck off to Sweden thirsty for knowledge. Studying Sustainable Energy Engineering at the Royal Institute of Technology Stockholm, he has been focused on causing trouble in the renewable energy and self sufficiency space every since. Over the past 9 years, Ross has been living & working in Stockholm, Sydney, London, Mexico, Berlin & and recently returned to Melbourne, with a weird and wonderful portfolio of projects in his pocket, ranging from techy consulting projects with internationally renowned architects, to quirky communications campaigns with luxury designer brands & even a few solar powered parties. He has recently returned to Australia to be based in Fitzroy, Melbourne and is focused on self sufficient building design and master planning.

Nick Harding:

Principal of Ha

Nick graduated from the UniSA, with a Bachelor of Architecture in 2003, and registered in Victoria in 2007. He commenced work with acclaimed design practice, John Wardle Architects in 2004, focusing primarily on institutional and residential projects. In his time at JWA Nicholas worked on multiple award winning projects, including UniSA’s Hawke Centre and the Melbourne Grammar Nigel Peck Centre for Learning and Leadership. In 2009 he joined conceptual design practice Herbert & Mason, where he worked on intensive interior focused projects. Since founding Ha in 2011, Nick's focus for the practice has been to undertake community focused design projects, of varying scales.

Cast: AdelaideSBN and ESM

The Minister for the Environment has published the annual list of classes of products the Minister is proposing to consider, during the next financial year, for some form of accreditation or regulation under the Product Stewardship Act 2011.

Lamb genetically modified with jellyfish protein may have been sent from Paris lab to abattoir after dispute between researchers – and ended up on someone’s plate

A lamb born with a jellyfish gene was mistakenly sold for human consumption and probably ended up on someone’s plate, French authorities have said. A dispute between researchers at a highly respected national institute may have been the cause of the animal being deliberately sent to the abattoir last year. Police have now been called in and an inquiry launched into how the lamb could have been passed as fit for human consumption.

Le Parisien newspaper reported that the animal’s mother was a sheep called Emeraude whose DNA had been modified to include a jellyfish gene called Green Fluorescent Protein by researchers at the National Institute for Agronomic Research (INRA) in Paris. Her lamb, Rubis, was born with the gene in the spring of 2014. Although produced for research purposes, Rubis was allegedly deliberately mixed with several other lambs that had not been genetically modified and sent to an abattoir.

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The rate at which vertebrate species are dying far exceeds the norm

Life on Earth is in trouble. That much we know. But how bad have things become – and how fast are events moving? How soon, indeed, before the Earth’s biological treasures are trashed, in what will be the sixth great mass extinction event? This is what Gerardo Caballos of the National Autonomous University of Mexico and his colleagues have assessed, in a paper that came out on Friday.

These are extraordinarily difficult questions. There are many millions of species, many elusive and rare, and inhabiting remote and dangerous places. There are too few skilled biologists in the field to keep track of them all. Demonstrating beyond reasonable doubt that any single species is extinct is arduous and painstaking (think how long it took to show – to most people, at least – that Loch Ness probably does not harbour a large monster).

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Study reveals rate of extinction for species in the 20th century has been up to 100 times higher than would have been normal without human impact

The modern world is experiencing a “sixth great extinction” of animal species even when the lowest estimates of extinction rates are considered, scientists have warned.

The rate of extinction for species in the 20th century was up to 100 times higher than it would have been without man’s impact, they said.

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