Feed aggregator
Seeds of doubt: the fight for Paraguay's farmlands – in pictures
Spanish photographer Jordi Ruiz Cirera documents the fallout from Paraguay’s booming agriculture sector, where families are forced from their homes and rivers are filled with pesticides
Continue reading...How to celebrate World Tapir Day – video
Here’s the one minute of pure enjoyment that you didn’t know you needed to see. Keeper Jess Stockton gives Melbourne zoo’s Brazilian tapir a good raking over for World Tapir Day (27 April)
Continue reading...Shifting ground has suited the colonies
Merry’s Meadows, Leicestershire Ancient disturbance created ridges and troughs, letting a wide range of plants colonise the meadow grassland
There is no better way to mark the land’s springtime rejuvenation than a sunny morning whiled away botanising in a floristically diverse meadow.
Merry’s Meadows – there are three fairly large fields – huddle together surrounded by a sea of bright yellow oilseed rape. The shallow corrugation of ridges and furrows indicate that a good proportion of the nature reserve was ploughed and cropped in mediaeval times.
Continue reading...Greens delight in inserting more wind turbines into Barnaby’s seat
Regulator blames AEMO errors for South Australia blackout
Video: Tom Gleeson on rooftop solar, and ridiculous retailer business models
Gas shortfall may be short-lived, thanks to growing renewables
How much storage and back-up do high renewable grids need?
Economists split over Turnbull's plan to reserve gas for Australian customers
The federal government has pledged to bring in legislation that would allow it to restrict gas exports and force Australian producers to reserve supplies for domestic consumers, amid continuing fears of an east coast supply crisis.
The move comes after the apparent failure of crisis talks earlier this month, aimed at easing the forecast price squeeze.
But experts are split on whether domestic gas reservations are a wise move. In a survey of 32 economists by Monash Business School and the Economic Society of Australia, 38% agreed with the following statement, whereas 47% disagreed.
In response to energy shortages around Australia, government policies requiring gas producers to reserve some production for domestic consumption are a good way to ensure that Australian consumers have access to sufficient gas supplies while still allowing for gas exports.
Weighting the scores by confidence pushed the balance even further towards a negative verdict, as shown below.
David Prentice, principal economic adviser at Infrastructure Victoria, who summarised the results, said the forthcoming gas supply problems had “raised a lot of concern” as Australia heads into winter.
Lucrative export contracts have sent huge amounts of Australian gas overseas, meaning it is now cheaper to buy Australian gas in Japan than in Australia.
Western Australia already has a domestic gas reservation policy aimed at holding local prices in check amid a boom in liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports. But Prentice said many of the economists arguing against a similar policy for the eastern states feared that it would distort the market, pushing gas prices artificially low.
“A common theme in many of the arguments of those that disagree with the policy is that the appropriate response to rising gas prices overseas is to let the domestic price rise and firms and households work out the best way to adjust to higher prices – that is, let the ‘invisible hand’ work,” he said.
In contrast, several of those who favoured the policy argued that higher prices could pose a risk for many consumers, such as businesses that may struggle to compete internationally if their gas bills are too high.
Read the panel’s full responses below.
The ESA Monash Forum is a joint initiative between Monash Business School and the Economic Society of Australia.
![The Conversation](https://counter.theconversation.edu.au/content/76790/count.gif)
Big four banks distance themselves from Adani coalmine as Westpac rules out loan
Coalition frontbencher calls for Queenslanders to boycott Australia’s second-largest bank after it says it will now only lend to mines in established coalfields
All of Australia’s big four banks have ruled out funding or withdrawn from Adani’s Queensland coal project, after Westpac said it would not back opening up new coalmining regions.
Westpac, the country’s second-largest bank, released a new climate policy on Friday, saying it would limit lending for new thermal coal projects to “only existing coal producing basins”.
Continue reading...Battery storage: What am I buying, apples or oranges?
Trump’s 100 days of trashing climate and clean energy policies
Greenpeace halts campaign against palm oil trader that has 'come a long way'
Malaysia-based IOI Group announces further moves to address deforestation and exploitation in its supply chain
Greenpeace has suspended its campaign against one of the world’s largest palm oil traders in recognition of its “significant commitment” to address deforestation and exploitation in its supply chain.
One year after its sustainability certificate was suspended, IOI Group announced further commitments to improve its environmental practice in a nine-month progress report released on Friday.
Continue reading...Households will be at centre of Australia’s transition to 100% renewables
French and Australian experts on solving the world's sustainability challenge
![](https://cdn.theconversation.com/files/166768/width496/file-20170426-13380-h0jn75.jpg)
The Conversation and the Australian French Embassy presented a panel between French and Australian experts at the University of New South Wales in March, opened by the French Minister for Foreign Affairs and International Development Jean-Marc Ayrault.
In his opening remarks, Ayrault celebrated the signing and coming into force of the 2015 Paris Agreement, under which countries agreed to limit warming to well-below 2℃, however he highlighted that more action needs to be taken around the world.
“Some are tempted to slow it down, or worse, to take a step backwards. We can currently see this in the United States.
"Tackling climate change is a democratic fight. Individual actions are like votes: on their own, they seem powerless, but together, they give new meaning to our societies,” he said.
The panel discussion included screenings of clips from the French documentary Tomorrow. View the complete discussion below.
The Conversation asked French and Australian experts what they consider to be the major challenges to overcome in transitioning to a more sustainable world.
Better valuing sustainable development in transportFrançois Raulin, Researcher, The Territory Development Institute, Normandy Business School
Since the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, sustainable development has gradually become a key issue for public policy in many countries. Despite many global efforts - for example - to reduce carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere, most small initiatives are being taken at the local level.
Take the example of sustainable mobility in cities. The majority of urban agglomerations have been designed or redeveloped for cars. In order to limit the use of cars, various devices have been put in place, such as the introduction of urban road tolls (for example in Singapore, London and Stockholm), the removal of parking lots in inner city centres, or more recently the installation of eco stickers (road tax) for polluting vehicles in Paris.
In parallel, many French cities have seen a reduction in car use in favour of more sustainable forms of transport. As well as public transport such as trains, buses or trams, bikes and walking are alternative solutions to cars. However, depending on the urban environment, bicycling or walking is not always possible, or is dangerous.
How can these modes of active transport be promoted? Here are three possible solutions:
First, by promoting their health benefits, including the fight against obesity, the decline in cardiovascular diseases or the preservation of mental health.
Second, by encouraging their intermodality with other transport system, which would reduce the use of cars over short distances. The development of bike-sharing systems or improved walkability are various solutions proposed to encourage their use in the city.
Third, by increasing the ground area dedicated to cycling (bike paths) and walking (footpaths) while decreasing that of cars.
Beyond environmental issues, the development of sustainable mobility in cities also improves the quality of life of the inhabitants (less pollution, less noise, and so on) and make it more attractive, especially among young people.
Overcoming inertia in the energy systemDani Alexander, Research principal, Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology Sydney
Overcoming inertia, both culturally and technologically, will be the key to unlocking our clean energy transition.
Power has been shifting to the energy consumers with the rapid rise of rooftop solar and falling costs of battery storage. However, with this has come discontent with the large electricity businesses that were built in the traditional model of “big energy” to “small consumer”.
As Belgian historian David Van Reybrouck argues in the film Tomorrow, there is an “increasing sense of theft” among consumers, which can drive action against the system such as “going off-grid”. The majority of Australians are ready to move to a renewable energy system despite the political inertia.
Our researchers at the Institute for Sustainable Futures have investigated the risk of a “death spiral” where, as more people leave the grid, the shared cost of our electricity infrastructure becomes more concentrated among fewer people, leading in turn to yet more people leaving the grid.
Unfortunately, it is often those who are more vulnerable (such as those who cannot afford a personal energy system) that pay the highest price. There are options to improve the way that our energy market works to provide a fairer deal for everyone, but regulatory inertia seems to be strong as well.
But what about technically? Can we move to a renewable energy system without risking the system or soaring electricity bills? Or is a rapid transition irresponsible, as some in our federal government would have us believe? Can renewables provide the same reliable services?
Moving towards more local generation, such as more rooftop solar, does make managing electricity more complex, for example in keeping network voltage in check. Luckily, renewable technologies have already advanced and have the capability to provide the network support services we need. Solar panels with storage will be able to moderate voltage at the source of the problem. Wind turbines already have the ability to provide the “synthetic” inertia to keep the grid stable – if the market allows and promotes it.
So what we need now is a new momentum. Strong enough to overcome the inertia and fast enough to divert our path away from irreversible climate change.
Working from the ground upJoachim Claudet, Researcher, CNRS/PSL University
Global change is a major challenge for human societies. It is modifying ecosystems all over the world, hence threatening our wellbeing through alterations to the flow of ecosystem services. However, global change is not affecting societies everywhere in the same way. Global drivers interact with local drivers.
They can combine with local stresses, such as overfishing or land clearing, creating additive or even multiplicative impacts. Understanding and predicting global change impacts thus requires strong knowledge of local social-ecological systems, of human-nature interactions (such as human use of the environment, natural disturbance history).
Global drivers also emerge from local processes. Hence, attempts to minimise the magnitude of global drivers or strategies to mitigate their impacts require local interventions. These can include incentives to modify human uses or adaptive management to foster resilience of social-ecological systems.
The latter requires a deep understanding of local world views as effective strategies in a place can be culturally inappropriate in another. This is particularly true in some Pacific Island countries – those countries being some of the most vulnerable to climate change – where wellbeing is strongly tied to the connectedness of people and places and where there is no distinction between nature and culture.
![The Conversation](https://counter.theconversation.edu.au/content/74374/count.gif)
Dani Alexander is a member of the Institute for Sustainable Futures (ISF), which undertakes paid sustainability research for a wide range of government, NGO and corporate clients, including energy businesses.
François Raulin and Joachim Claudet do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.
Government bid to delay air pollution plan fails
Harvard 'pausing' investments in some fossil fuels
University stops short of fully divesting its $36bn endowment from coal, oil and gas but green groups welcome the breakthrough after a five-year campaign
Harvard University is “pausing” investments in some fossil fuel interests following a five-year campaign by some students and environment groups to pressure the university to divest itself from coal, oil and gas.
Continue reading...Air pollution plan would be election campaign bomb, court hears
Government’s advocate applies to delay publishing proposals until 30 June, saying controversy might be seen as ‘Tory plan’
The government wants to delay publishing its plan to tackle air pollution in England and Wales because it would be like dropping a bomb into the election campaign, the high court has heard.
James Eadie QC, representing the government, said it would be better to put the publication on hold until after the general election to avoid the controversy over how to tackle the air quality crisis being seen as a “Tory plan”.
Continue reading...The other cane toad invasion
The Republicans who care about climate change: 'They are done with the denial'
As despair intensifies over Trump’s agenda, the bipartisan Climate Solutions Caucus brings Democrats and Republicans together to break the deadlock
The failure of American politics to deal with, or even coherently discuss, climate change was perhaps best illustrated when James Inhofe, a Republican from Oklahoma, took to the floor of the US senate with a ziploc bag and a mischievous grin in February 2015.
Related: March against madness - denial has pushed scientists out into the streets | Dana Nuccitelli
Continue reading...