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Nausea, headaches and nosebleeds, invasive chemical smells, constant drilling, slumping property prices – welcome to Ponder, Texas, where fracking has overtaken the town. With the chancellor last week announcing tax breaks for drilling companies, could the UK be facing the same fate?

Veronica Kronvall can, even now, remember how excited she felt about buying her house in 2007. It was the first home she had ever owned and, to celebrate, her aunt fitted out the kitchen in Kronvall's favourite colour, purple: everything from microwave to mixing bowls. A cousin took pictures of her lying on the floor of the room that would become her bedroom. She planted roses and told herself she would learn how to garden.

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Up to an additional 40,000 ML of Commonwealth environmental water, subject to water availability within the connected Southern Basin catchments, has been made available for use to provide base flows and freshes in the Goulburn River between January and June 2014.

Quarterly Update of Australia's National Greenhouse Gas Inventory: June 2013

Did you know the smallest protected area in Australia is only five square metres? It’s Waubadebars Grave Historic Site in Tasmania. The largest terrestrial reserve is the Southern Tanami Indigenous Protected Area at over 10.1 million hectares. ...

10 December 2013 Commonwealth environmental water has been made available for use by the Nature Foundation South Australia between December 2013 and June 2016 at multiple sites along the South Australian River Murray.

After rigorous assessment, the Minister has completed the approvals process for four Queensland projects under national environment law.

The Threatened Species Scientific Committee is currently seeking comments on the eligibility for inclusion in the list of key threatening processes: ‘Biodiversity decline and habitat degradation in the arid and semi-arid Australian rangelands due...

A Tasmanian company is required to revegetate 7.9 ha of blue gum forest and protect 12.2 ha of grassy blue forest on their Iron House Point property. The company was found to have cleared 4 ha of grassy blue gum woodland which is likely to have a significant impact on the endangered Swift Parrot (Lathamus discolor).

Applications closed 5 pm (AEDST) 6 December 2013.

Mount Doom is like LA and the Shire like Lincolnshire, so says a climate model based on author's famously detailed maps

Climate sceptics regularly work themselves into a lather dismissing mainstream climate science as fantasy – but for once they have a point.

A researcher at Bristol University has trained his powerful supercomputer not at predicting the earth's future climate, but on the fictional world of Middle Earth – the backdrop for JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings.

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The Australian Government is currently seeking public comment on its draft referral guidelines for the Koala (combined populations of Queensland, New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory) - comments close 7 February 2014.

The Threatened Species Scientific Committee is seeking comments on: Caladenia porphyrea (magenta orchid),Corunastylis insignis (Wyong midge orchid 1), Corunastylis sp. Charmhaven (Wyong midge orchid 2) and Thelymitra adorata (Wyong sun-orchid) –...

The Threatened Species Scientific Committee is currently seeking comments on the Gymnobelideus leadbeateri (Leadbeater’s possum) critically endangered nomination - comments close 24 January 2014.

Upset by the recent road deaths across the capital and the way the finger of blame seems to be pointing at them, London cyclists took to the streets to call for greater investment in road safety

On Friday night I had a quick word with my boss (also a regular cyclist) and then slipped away a little early from Kings Place to pedal down Farringdon Road, over Blackfriars Bridge and on to the Transport for London building. As I arrived at 4.50pm there was already a fair-sized huddle of fellow cyclists gathering in the cold around a portable sound system and banner on the pavement.

The quickly swelling crowd was the result of less than two weeks' hectic and quite spontaneous activism by a relatively small group of people, coordinated via Facebook. I had been one of those activists.

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Climate change is warming the Arctic and melting its ice cover, with grave consequences

Polar bear populations are a sensitive topic for the Canadian government, which has faced international criticism for its policies on climate change and for allowing limited hunting of bears, mainly by indigenous communities.

The Canadian environment minister provoked outrage last October when she discounted abundant scientific studies of polar bear decline across the Arctic, saying her brother, a hunter, was having no trouble finding bears. Leona Aglukkaq, an Inuk, spoke of a "debate" about the existence of climate change.

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Melting sea ice is forcing polar bears on to dry land – and, increasingly, into contact with humans

It was just a few days after a polar bear had mauled two people in the centre of town that the patrol officer pulled up by the school and scanned his binoculars along the rocky shoreline of Hudson Bay looking for any signs of a telltale white lump.

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National symbol of the Democratic Republic of the Congo becomes victim of country's long-running war, IUCN says

The blue-tongued forest giraffe, the national symbol of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is on the brink of extinction, according to the latest update to the red list of threatened species. The stripy-legged creature, which appears on Congolese banknotes and is actually a species of okapi, has become another victim of the DRC's long-running war. But surveys reveal that conservation efforts have had a positive effect on ocean-roaming leatherback turtles and albatrosses, while a Californian fox has returned from the edge.

"This red list update shows some fantastic conservation successes, from which we must learn," said Jane Smart, a director at the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which compiles the list.

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• US biotechnology firm AquaBounty given green light 
• FDA expected to follow with decision on sale of GM salmon

Canada has given the go-ahead to commercial production of genetically modified salmon eggs, bringing the world's first GM food animal closer to supermarkets and dinner tables.

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No 10 says it does not recognise the phrase but prime minister's team does not explicitly deny such a statement was made

David Cameron was at the centre of a storm on Thursday over whether he ordered aides to "get rid of all the green crap" from energy bills in a drive to bring down costs.

The language, attributed to Cameron in the Sun newspaper by a senior Tory source, sparked a furious reaction from campaigners accusing the prime minister of abandoning his promise to run the greenest government ever.

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The Threatened Species Scientific Committee is currently seeking comments on: Posidonia seagrass meadows ecological community assessment. The period for comment closes on 16 February 2014.