Feed aggregator

Scientists were amazed to find remains of 300,000-year-old sediment slip while conducting 3D mapping of deep sea floor

Evidence of a massive undersea landslide that took place more than 300,000 years ago has been discovered off the Great Barrier Reef.

Scientists discovered remains of the slip off Innisfail on Australia’s north Queensland coast.

Continue reading...

‘This is the last chance saloon,’ say politicians and campaigners pushing for urgent action

The UK and EU, the world’s largest exporters of legal ivory, have been accused of not doing enough to save Africa’s fast disappearing elephant populations.

“This is the last chance saloon to save elephants,” said UK Labour MP Justin Madders at a meeting at Westminster Hall on Monday where more than 30 MPs on both sides of the chamber debated a public petition of 107,000 signatories calling for government to close its domestic ivory markets.

Continue reading...

Environment minister Anil Madhav Dave overlooks Greenpeace research stating 1.2m Indians die each year from airborne pollutants

India’s environment minister has been accused of playing down the health risks of the country’s extremely polluted air by claiming, contrary to research, that there is no conclusive data available linking “death exclusively with air pollution”.

The environmental group Greenpeace released a report in January citing Global Burden of Disease (GBD) research that estimated nearly 1.2 million Indians die each year due to high concentrations of airborne pollutants such as dust, mould spores, arsenic, lead, nickel and the carcinogen chromium.

Continue reading...

Fish is Norway’s most valuable export, more so than its vast oil fields. Two-thirds of UK cod comes from the Barents Sea. As the climate changes and the sea grows warmer the fish move north, and so, too, do the fishermen

Continue reading...

A facial reconstruction has been made of Orkney's St Magnus by a forensic artist to help mark the 900th anniversary of his death.

A proposed government ban on the tiny plastic beads that pollute the ocean should be extended to include items such as make-up, sunscreen and cleaning products

Plans to ban tiny pieces of plastic that pollute the ocean should be extended to more products that people commonly wash down the drain, campaigners urged.

The government has proposed banning the sale and manufacture of products containing plastics known as microbeads that they classify as “rinse-off” items, such as shower gel, face scrubs and toothpaste.

Continue reading...

Scientists say the collapse next to the Great Barrier Reef dates back more than 300,000 years.

Federal funding for Adani project amounts to $683,060 a job, compared with $3,219 a worker in Queensland’s clean energy sector, 350.org says

Clean energy projects in Queensland are already on track to create more employment than Australia’s largest proposed coalmine, which if funded federally would cost taxpayers 212 times more per job, according to new study.

Federal government agencies are investing $71.4m in seven solar farms and a wind farm in Queensland, which are set to deliver a total of 2,218 jobs, according to analysis by climate advocacy group 350.org.

Continue reading...

Wenlock Edge With its riotous sex life and quick, edgy, movements, the hedge sparrow is like a little ticking bomb

Tseep! The hedge sparrow will not break loose from the gravity of the hedge. Hedge is home: a four-dimensional forest that travels through a landscape beset by dangerous space, and provides for a kind of dwelling that supports a very particular society. This tiny passerine is also called a dunnock – literally, little brown bird – an anonymous, blended-in, could-be-anything.

This one is prospecting for beetles, spiders and ants, as damp, mild, weather brings out early creatures. Its pencil-sharp beak shows that it is not adapted to seeds but it will take them when there’s nothing else. Drab and grey-headed is the usual description (as is mine), but there is a subtle vibrancy to its oak-polish brown flecked with darker encryptions, and its head, the colour of lichen on branches.

Continue reading...

Sydney Airport has achieved Airports Council International (ACI) Level 3 Airport Carbon Accreditation, working with airport business partners to manage and reduce carbon emissions.

New NSW-based Australian business accelerator program targets renewable energy, battery storage and other cleantech start-ups with seed funding and mentoring.

ABC says Labor is "slave" to renewables ideology, while promoting Coalition as defender of cheap energy prices. Has Aunty completely lost the plot?

Energy regulators find extraordinary examples of fossil fuel generators pushing up prices by removing competition. So far this year, there have been 40 times more high priced events in renewable-scarce Queensland this year than in wind-rich South Australia.

Tesla and LG Chem tipped to dominate the US battery storage market, which is expected to be worth as much as $US50 billion by 2020.

Victoria's government will ban onshore gas fracking with the support of the state Coalition; a fairer solar feed-in tarrif, not-so much.

Saudi Arabia, Qatar and France to hold key auctions for wind and solar that could see lowest prices yet.

The massive potential for local generation to actually improve the quality of our power, rather than hinder it is not properly understood.

A new report from Clean Horizon points to France becoming Europe’s next big market for storage.

Is tourism just the latest manifestation of the colonial impulse?

What are holidays for? What ethical considerations ought to constrain trips to remote and overseas communities? What of resorts – are they irredeemably unethical? Can the promise of supporting local economies be realised, or is tourism just the latest manifestation of the colonial impulse?