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Big quantities of nitrate chemicals from farm fertilisers are polluting the rocks beneath our feet.

Pintail ducks, an elephant seal pup and an osprey in action are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world

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The advance party sent in to open up Britain’s mothballed Antarctic base say it is in good shape.

Two species of seahorses are among the unexpected creatures found living in London.

Paul Bodnar believes US president has ability to hamper progress towards a lower carbon economy – but that market forces will ultimately stop him

Donald Trump could slow down US progress towards a lower carbon economy, but he will be unable to halt it because businesses and local governments have committed to a low-carbon path, a former climate negotiator for the US has said.

Through measures such as slapping import tariffs on solar products, scrapping incentives to renewable energy and promoting coal power, the US president could try to alter the economics of pursuing low-carbon energy.

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With political agreement making slow progress and direct action becoming more dangerous, we must find alternatives

In the medieval legend made famous by the brothers Grimm, the German town of Hamelin is besieged by a plague of rats, until the mysterious pied piper appears and agrees, for a fee, to rid them of the infestation. The mayor then reneges on payment and the piper exacts a savage revenge on the town’s ingrates by luring away their children, who are never seen again.

The tale could also be an allegory for today’s grim intergenerational smash-and-grab – the global economy. As environmentalist Paul Hawken put it: “We have an economy where we steal the future, sell it in the present, and call it GDP.”

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Bici Palermo Tuning – a group of teenagers from the Sicilian capital – spend anything up to €1,300 customising their bikes with car batteries and multiple speakers to develop thunderous sound systems. The police are not impressed

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Waltham Forest’s new zero-emissions delivery service aims to replace polluting trucks for local deliveries of food, online purchases and more

Each morning Oscar Godoy unlocks a door in a railway arch in north London, organises the day’s deliveries, and assigns jobs to his cargo bike riders. They manoeuvre the hefty bikes from the narrow lane out on to the road, past assorted vehicles from the MOT garage, the car wash and vehicle repair outfits at either end.

In the afternoons Godoy does the deliveries himself. Two weeks after the scheme’s launch he heads out, on an electric trike with a large white metal box across its rear axle, filled with the day’s first consignment from a local organic vegetable box scheme.

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Australian Museum teams up with IBM to monitor the country’s native frog population by having their calls recorded

The Australian Museum has teamed up with IBM to count the country’s native frog population via a world-first app that records their calls and sends them to experts for identification.

App FrogID will give the public the chance to carry out Australia’s first such national count, which begins on Friday and is intended to support researchers’ efforts to save endangered native species. Australia has 240 named native species of frog, but the museum wants to identify what it believes are dozens more still ribbiting under the radar.

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BHP has distanced itself from moves to strip environment groups of their tax deductibility status. Why does the Big Australian see value in defending them? Samantha Hepburn, Director of the Centre for Energy and Natural Resources Law, Deakin Law School, Deakin University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

ESB chair Kerry Schott says it will be up to the states to act if they want higher emissions targets.

Schott says NEG modelling assumes "low end" of wind and solar costs, defying recent evidence. But ESB did admit there is much work to do on policy, dispatchability had yet to be defined, new coal unlikely to get a look in, and states free to pursue own targets.

A mock-up image of a new coal plant has been created, as part of the increasingly intense campaign to have one built – and funded by taxpayers – in north Queensland.

Boilers of old Northern coal fired generator brought down, bringing end of coal era in South Australia and paving way for huge investment in renewables and storage.

For decades, there was a ceiling not of glass but of ice, holding women back from doing research in Antarctica.

More than half of England's secondary schools did not offer the subject in 2015-16, a report has found.

Climate change remains the biggest global health threat of the 21st Century, yet Medibank has remained invested in coal, oil and gas companies that fuel the problem.

Energy debate in Australia seems overly focused on supply side of the market - it should look more closely at demand.

US car makers will suffer if President Trump eases emissions standards, California's governor says.

At COP 23 talks in Bonn, Fiji has called on developed nations to help the world’s most vulnerable build resilience to climate change

To prepare for the rising temperatures, strengthening storms and higher sea levels in the coming decades, Fiji must spend an amount equivalent to its entire yearly gross domestic product over the next 10 years, according to the first comprehensive assessment of the small island nation’s vulnerability to climate change, compiled by its government with the assistance of the World Bank.

Released half-way through the COP23 in Bonn, which Fiji is presiding over, the report highlights five major interventions and 125 further actions that it says are necessary to achieve Fiji’s development objectives, while facing the potentially devastating impacts of climate change. Combined those actions would cost about US$4.5bn over the next decade.

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