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The electric utility sector is broken – but the transformation we need will be virtually impossible so long as a handful of wealthy elites are calling the shots

A new report from the US-based Energy and Policy Institute last week found that investor-owned utilities have known about climate change for nearly 50 years – and done everything in their power to stop governments from doing anything about it.

From their commitment to toxic fuels to their corrosive influence on our democracy to their attempts to price-gouge ratepayers, it’s long past time to bring the reign of privately-owned electric utilities to an end.

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A new report shows toxins from companies like Tyson Foods are pouring into waterways in the gulf and surrounds, causing marine life to leave or die

The global meat industry, already implicated in driving global warming and deforestation, has now been blamed for fueling what is expected to be the worst “dead zone” on record in the Gulf of Mexico.

Toxins from manure and fertiliser pouring into waterways are exacerbating huge, harmful algal blooms that create oxygen-deprived stretches of the gulf, the Great Lakes and Chesapeake Bay, according to a new report by Mighty, an environmental group chaired by former congressman Henry Waxman.

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Whether basking in sunshine in the northern hemisphere or fighting cooler temperatures in the south, we’d like to see the wildlife you discover

Wherever you are in the world and however professional or amateur your photography set up, we would like to see your images of the wildlife living near you.

Related: Otters, geese and grebes: your photos as the Wetland Trust turns 70

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A number of people across Weymouth reported seeing the phenomena earlier.

There are parallels between today’s and past greenhouse gas-driven climate changes

Coincidence doesn’t prove causality, as they say, but when the same two things happen together over and over again through the vast span of geological time, there must be a causal link. Of some 18 major and minor mass extinctions since the dawn of complex life, most happened at the same time as a rare, epic volcanic phenomenon called a Large Igneous Province (LIP). Many of those extinctions were also accompanied by abrupt climate warming, expansion of ocean dead zones and acidification, like today.

Earth’s most severe mass extinction, the “Great Dying,” began 251.94 million years ago at the end of the Permian period, with the loss of more than 90% of marine species. Precise rock dates published in 2014 and 2015 proved that the extinction coincided with the Siberian Traps LIP, an epic outpouring of lava and intrusions of underground magma covering an area of northern Asia the size of Europe.

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Emergency services rescue a man and his dog stuck in a car caught in flood waters in Colorado on Sunday. Rescuers use a crane to move the man and his pet to safety. The car was parked off a road in Fremont County when the water hit

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Rare images of wild tigers in Bhutan captured by camera traps set up in a high altitude wildlife corridor verify that tigers and other animals are using stretches of land that connect protected areas. Photojournalist and filmmaker Emmanuel Rondeau undertook a three month expedition, supported by WWF and the Bhutanese government, to document tigers. His work reveals corridors are lifelines to otherwise isolated populations of tigers and other wildlife, and are critical to their genetic diversity, conservation and growth

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The Sunswift team has designed and built Eve to be registered as a road legal sports car, representing a shift in solar powered transport from conceptual to commercial vehicle standards.

The best way to estimate the prices is to use Tesla’s own configuration prices for the USA/Aus Model S and then scale them for the lower numbers.

The rainforests of Papua New Guinea are home to one of the richest bird populations in the world. But many are threatened by logging and palm oil farming.

Now, a team of researchers led by Edith Cowan University have surveyed the PNG island of New Britain to see how the bird population is faring.

The good news: several bird species, like the Blue-eyed Cockatoo, were found to be doing better than before.

The bad news: the researchers saw only a few New Britain Kingfishers, and some vulnerable species, like the New Britain Bronzewing, Golden Masked-owl and Bismarck Thicketbird, were not seen at all.

Their results, recently published in the journal Bird Conservation International, help to inform the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species.

Robert Davis does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.

Welfare lobby is right to rail against Australia’s ridiculous electricity prices, but echoing fossil fuel talking points against solar and other new technologies is self defeating.

Millers Dale, Derbyshire A galaxy of tiny purple globes sway where once the milk churns waited for the night train to London

The old railway station in this part of Derbyshire’s Wye valley presents an astonishing happenstance of mixed colour. There is the Van Gogh yellow of the ragwort and the dark mullein spikes. There are the blended lilacs of field scabious and the rose shades from wild marjoram and over most of the area towers a canopy of greater and black knapweed flowers creating a galaxy of tiny purple globes. In the wind, all these colours sway and mingle.

My favourite of all is in the blooms of the bloody cranesbill. It is intriguing that botanists used body parts to invoke its hue while the makers of matte lipstick call the same shade “pink peony”. Look closely at the petals and they comprise fields of exquisite magenta veined with red.

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Australia's installed solar PV capacity set to double in three years, according to latest APVI data, as the big solar market gears back up.

GE wins tender for back-up generator, and will install mobile units using diesel this summer, before turning them into longer-term gas-fired units.

Climate change is set to increase the amount of ground-level ozone and fine particle pollution we breathe, which leads to lung disease, heart conditions, and stroke. Less rain and more heat means this pollution will stay in the air for longer, creating more health problems.

Our research, published in Nature Climate Change, found that if climate change continues unabated, it will cause about 60,000 extra deaths globally each year by 2030, and 260,000 deaths annually by 2100, as a result of the impact of these changes on pollution.

This is the most comprehensive study to date on the effects of climate change on global air quality and health. Researchers from the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Japan and New Zealand between them used nine different global chemistry-climate models.

Most models showed an increase in likely deaths – the clearest signal yet of the harm climate change will do to air quality and human health, adding to the millions of people who die from air pollution every year.

Read more: Can we blame climate change for thunderstorm asthma?

Stagnant air

Climate change fundamentally alters the air currents that move pollution across continents and between the lower and higher layers of the atmosphere. This means that where air becomes more stagnant in a future climate, pollution stays near the ground in higher concentrations.

Ground-level ozone is created when chemical pollution (such as emissions from cars or manufacturing plants) reacts in the presence of sunlight. As climate change makes an area warmer and drier, it will produce more ozone.

Fine particles are a mixture of small solids and liquid droplets suspended in air. Examples include black carbon, organic carbon, soot, smoke and dust. These fine particles, which are known to cause lung diseases, are emitted from industry, transport and residential sources. Less rain means that fine particles stay in the air for longer.

While fine particles and ozone both occur naturally, human activity has increased them substantially.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has used four different future climate scenarios, representing optimistic to pessimistic levels of emissions reduction.

In a previous study, we modelled air pollution-related deaths between 2000 and 2100 based on the most pessimistic of these scenarios. This assumes large population growth, modest improvements in emissions-reducing technology, and ineffectual climate change policy.

That earlier study found that while global deaths related to ozone increase in the future, those related to fine particles decrease markedly under this scenario.

Emissions will likely lead to deaths

In our new study, we isolated the effects of climate change on global air pollution, by using emissions from the year 2000 together with simulations of climate for 2030 and 2100.

The projected air pollutant changes due to climate change were then used in a health risk assessment model. That model takes into account population growth, how susceptible a population is to health issues and how that might change over time, and the mortality risk from respiratory and heart diseases and lung cancer.

In simulations with our nine chemistry-climate models, we found that climate change caused 14% of the projected increase in ozone-related mortality by 2100, and offset the projected decrease in deaths related to fine particles by 16%.

Our models show that premature deaths increase in all regions due to climate change, except in Africa, and are greatest in India and East Asia.

Using multiple models makes the results more robust than using a single model. There is some spread of results amongst the nine models used here, with a few models estimating that climate change may decrease air pollution-related deaths. This highlights that results from any study using a single model should be interpreted with caution.

Australia and New Zealand are both relatively unpolluted compared with countries in the Northern Hemisphere. Therefore, both ozone and fine particle pollution currently cause relatively few deaths in both countries. However, we found that under climate change the risk will likely increase.

This paper highlights that climate change will increase human mortality through changes in air pollution. These health impacts add to others that climate change will also cause, including from heat stress, severe storms and the spread of infectious diseases. By impacting air quality, climate change will likely offset the benefits of other measures to improve air quality.

Guang Zeng receives funding from the New Zealand Government's Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) through their Strategic Science Investment Fund.

Jason West receives funding from the US Environmental Protection Agency, NASA, National Science Foundation, and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.

Petrochemical billionaires Charles and David Koch, who have underwritten attacks on climate science, have launched a series of videos attacking electric vehicles.

Energy storage projects may bring the cost per kWh of a lithium-ion battery down from $10,000/kWh in the early 1990’s to $100/kWh in 2019, according to a new study.

Policy Exchange says EU agricultural policy should be replaced by system that makes imported meat cheaper for consumers

Britain should abandon tariffs on American and Argentinian meat products after Brexit to bring consumer food prices down, according to a leading rightwing thinktank.

Policy Exchange said the UK should phase out tariffs on agricultural products, saying they raise prices and complicate trade deals, although critics say that would pave the way for hormone-treated beef or chlorine-washed chickens, currently banned under EU law, to reach British supermarket shelves.

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The local water board apologises for 'causing alarm' with discharge from sewage tank maintenance.

Last week, egg producer Snowdale Holdings was penalised A$1 million for falsely labelling their eggs as free-range. Snowdale, one of the biggest producers in the Australian market, owns brands including Eggs by Ellah, Swan Valley Free Range, and Wanneroo Free Range.

Given the significantly higher prices generally charged for free-range eggs, you could be forgiven for having doubts over what you’re getting in the supermarket. Even when egg cartons are legally accurate, the government definition of “free range” might not mean what you think it does.

But you don’t need to shop blind: there are a range of resources that can help you find egg producers that follow best-practise standards, avoid farming practices that concern you and understand what government guidelines really mean.

Read more: the reason people buy free-range eggs (other than animal welfare)

What’s in an egg label?

Previous research has shown that people buy free-range eggs for a range of reasons, including taste and quality, as well as concern for animal welfare.

But unlike other labels such as nutritional information panels or best-before dates, the “free-range” claim is not regulated by Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ). In fact, no claims about production methods are subject to this kind of regulation. Food labelling regulation by FSANZ is about what a food contains, rather than how it is produced.

Eggs by Ellah, owned by Snowdale Holdings. Alpha/Flickr, CC BY-NC

However, there is an Australian definition of “free-range”, created in March 2016 under Australian consumer law. Essentially, it means that the chickens have “meaningful and regular access to the outdoors” and that outdoor stocking densities are no more than 10,000 birds per hectare.

This has been hotly debated, with animal welfare and consumer groups arguing that this is not what most people would consider free-range, while producer groups have supported the standard.

The new regulations also requires producers to “prominently disclose” the outdoor stocking density, and we are now starting to see that on packaging.

What does free-range really mean?

In practice, stocking chooks at 10,000 per hectare and giving them regular access to the outdoors, might not result in animals that are especially free (or “cruelty-free” – another claim showing up on an increasing number of egg cartons).

Read more: free-range egg labelling scrambles the message for consumers

For a start, CSIRO has published a code of practice for animal welfare that recommends farmers should have no more than 1,500 birds per hectare. If you want to buy from producers that meet that standard, the consumer group Choice has an app called CluckAR that can scan egg cartons in the store and give immediate feedback on the brand’s farming conditions.

Choice also provides a table of free-range egg producers. Reading that table – and from my own discussions with Australian egg producers – it’s clear that price is not a totally reliable indicator of stocking density.

However, stocking density is only one factor in how hens are treated. Some independent certifications have more stringent guidelines. The Australian Certified Organic Standard, as well as specifying a maximum of 1,500 birds per hectare for set stocking systems and 2,500 for rotational systems, also prohibits practices like withholding feed and water to induce moulting.

The Australian Organic certification indicates a lower stocking density, and more stringent cruelty-free practises, than the government definition of ‘free range’. Australian Certified Organic

Hens naturally moult in autumn, when they lose significant body weight and stop laying eggs while their reproductive tract rejuvenates. For greater control over when hens produce eggs, as well as extending their hens’ laying lives, farmers can induce moulting by reducing their feed, or withholding food altogether for certain periods. Although heavily regulated at the state level in Australia (hens may not go without food entirely for more than 24 hours), it is considered cruel by animal welfare groups.

Similarly Humane Choice recommends a maximum of 1,500 birds per hectare. And unlike the government definition of free-range, which calls for “meaningful and regular” access to the outside, Humane Choice standards specify that hens can “forage on the land, move untethered and uncaged”.

Of course, it is important to note that free-range farms are not free of animal welfare issues, such as feather pecking, where hens pull out the feathers of other birds. There are further challenges is managing exposure to weather or predators to consider. Caged-egg producers argue that consumers should be able to choose from a range of production methods.

However, if animal welfare, sustainability, and labelling are things that you are concerned about, then do your own research and identify the products that align with your values. Don’t rely on a label to tell you what is ethical.

Heather Bray's salary is partly funded by an Australian Research Council Linkage Project (LP130100419) which includes contributions from industry partners Coles Group Ltd, Elders Limited, Richard Gunner’s Fine Meats Pty Ltd, and the South Australian Research and Development Institute. She is currently undertaking consultancy work for Animal Health Australia. She received scholarships from the Pig Research and Development Corporation (now Australian Pork Limited) between 1991 and 1997. The University of Adelaide is a partner in the Animal Welfare Science Centre.