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From the oil that makes your petrol, to car parts, to the groceries and other things in your weekly shop, retail consumerism is driving a boom in the amount of noise in the world's oceans. Andrew J. Wright, Marine Mammal Researcher, Fisheries and Oceans Canada Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Multinational says deadline was predicated on a subsidised Australian government loan

Adani’s plan to build Australia’s largest coalmine has suffered another setback. The company has abandoned its March deadline for securing financing for the first stage of the Carmichael mine.

In October, Jeyakumar Janakaraj, the chief executive of Adani Australia, told Reuters it aimed to settle financing for the project by March 2018.

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Germany's sonnen to build battery storage manufacturing plant in Adelaide, creating more than 400 jobs and planning 50,000 storage units.

Major industrials Sun Metals and MSF Sugar join state government-led "virtual power plant", that will draw electricity from customers around the state to bolster supply during peak demand.

Potential for floating windfarms is huge, as many countries have windy sites close to shore

Floating windfarms are likely to be the next large-scale development in renewable energy. The first Hywind Scotland, developed by the Norwegian state oil giant, Statoil, has proved a greater success than its designers hoped. The five giant six-megawatt turbines, 25 miles east of Peterhead, produced more power than expected in the first three months and withstood hurricane-force winds and giant waves.

The potential for this technology is hard to overstate. Few countries have shallow continental shelves like the UK to build offshore windfarms on the sea bed, but many have windy sites close to shore where floating windfarms could be anchored to provide power for coastal cities.

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The Australian white ibis, AKA the 'bin chicken', might not have won the title of Australia's favourite bird, but its next race might help scientists understand how dinosaurs walked and ran

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Britain's Stone Age population was almost completely replaced some 4,500 years ago, a study shows.

Should Australia join the majority of the world and provide legal recognition of the human right to a healthy environment? Dr Meg Good, Adjunct Lecturer, Faculty of Law, University of Tasmania Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

These masters of disguise are some of the world’s oldest surviving mammals, but they are threatened by habitat loss, traffic and feral cats – and they need our help

They may be one of the world’s oldest surviving mammals – around for at least 25m years – but scientists don’t know much about echidnas. Now researchers believe the remaining Australian population may be threatened and they need citizen scientists’ help to save them.

Related: 'Fantasy documents': recovery plans failing Australia's endangered species

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Minette Batters becomes first woman to hold top job since NFU was founded in 1908

The National Farmers’ Union has elected Minette Batters as the first female president in the organisation’s 110-year history.

Batters, a Wiltshire beef, sheep and arable farmer who has also diversified her business into weddings and catering, was previously the NFU’s deputy president.

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Government loses third court case as judge says approach to tackling pollution in 45 local authority areas is ‘not sufficient’

The government will have to do more to tackle illegal levels of air pollution after a high court judge ruled its current plans are “unlawful”.

Mr Justice Garnham told the London court on Wednesday the approach to tackling pollution in 45 local authority areas was “not sufficient”.

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Campaigners win a third High Court victory over the UK government's plans to tackle air pollution.

Scientists scan Tasmanian tiger specimens to better understand the marsupial's development in the pouch.

Without regulations that scrutinise food standards and trade deals, we cannot trust the safety of the food on our plates

It should come as no surprise that the global meat industry is a major source of disease and crime. We are talking about a substance of animal origin, inherently alive with risky micro-organisms, necessitating expensive traceability and investment to make it safe, and worth hundreds of billions of dollars in global trade.

But in the UK, regulation is increasingly underfunded. Meat inspection services have been slashed over the past decade in favour of greater industry self-regulation, favouring private assurance schemes and meat companies being given fewer inspection if they can show general compliance. This might sound sensible until you look back over recent history and realise that it has been some highly reputable companies that have been the source of bad meat news, and that it was a spot-check random inspection that uncovered the Russell Hume case. Without robust regulation and independent checks, food scandals are too often the result. And the picture is the same all over the world, as the global demand for meat increases rapidly as wealth increases, government seeks to reduce ‘red tape’ and more people adopt western, meat-heavy diets.

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Belle needed treatment for an injured leg and is Cotswold Wildlife Park's first hand-reared white rhino calf.

Luckett, Tamar Valley: Vegetation hides the extensive spoil heaps and the midday sun gilds catkins on sprawling hazels

On the north side of Kit Hill, remnants of last night’s hail lie beside the steep road leading to the old mining settlement of Luckett. A solitary stack in a field above Deer Park Farm used to vent poisonous arsenic fumes from works in the valley below; down there, beside abandoned mine workings, dilapidated single-storey dwellings have been mooted as a mining museum.

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Government-backed power-to-gas plant in Adelaide to store renewable electricity and distribute it in gas network as hydrogen.

Brisbane City Council has been certified carbon neutral against the Australian Government’s National Carbon Offset Standard (NCOS).

Frydenberg goes to Adelaide and is trumped again by Weatherill's big vision. Leading analysts say SA Premier stands apart. "At least this man has balls."

Carnegie Clean Energy wins $3m SA govt grant to build 2MW/500kWh battery and renewable microgrid on old GM Holden site.