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Plans to launch satellites - and even people - from the UK get a boost from government.

Fake news propagates through the conservative media to the halls of Congress where science is under attack

This weekend, conservative media outlets launched an attack on climate scientists with a manufactured scandal. The fake news originated from an accusation made by former NOAA scientist John Bates about a 2015 paper by some of his NOAA colleagues. The technical term to describe the accusation is ‘a giant nothingburger,’ as Bates clarified in an interview with E&E News:

The issue here is not an issue of tampering with data, but rather really of timing of a release of a paper that had not properly disclosed everything it was.

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I grew up with a piano in my bedroom, but now the thought of ivory fills me with revulsion. The UK needs to impose a total ban on the trade of elephant tusks

Growing up in our two up, two down terraced house on the Southside of Edinburgh, I shared my bedroom with a cherished family heirloom – my granny’s mini-grand. This beautiful piano had been to the other side of the world and back. It ended up taking up half my room and a whole lot of my life. I taught myself to play on it, bashing out the sevenths while pretending to be (pre-Wings) McCartney. Now I think of that piano with total revulsion. I believe anyone in the possession of ivory should feel the same. It is over. It has to be.

Look at the knife handles or antique toothpick and then think of the dead mother with her face hacked off as her tuskless, helpless one-year-old tries to nudge her back to life. Google image search is always a useful resource. I feel no differently about the thought of a gorilla-hand ashtray (yes, they are a thing in parts of the Far East) or a nice cool glass of lion bone wine (ditto). One more time: ivory is so over.

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Galilee Blockade, which opposes the $16bn Carmichael mine, urges followers to apply for jobs with the Indian company

A civil disobedience campaign targeting Adani’s controversial Queensland coal project has asked almost 12,000 supporters to sign up for a job with the miner.

The Galilee Blockade is working on infiltrating Adani and related companies to gain sources of information to help its plans for “direct action”.

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The decision comes after Donald Trump formally backed the pipeline in an early act as president.

Sandy, Bedfordshire: Peewit, teeack, chewit … whatever you call it, it sounds like the Clangers

Unearthly sounds have filled the fields lately, breaking frosty silences or cocking a whooping snook at louring skies. The lapwing’s voice is the joker in the pack, shooting up and down the scales like a novice twiddling the knobs on a synthesiser. It does not feel grounded in this landscape of puddles, mud slaked over boots, ragged grass margins, finches giving out throwaway chirrups, and the dull ribbed skeleton leftovers of last year’s flowers.

Our field-working forebears must have listened daily and tried to capture the distinctive peculiarity of these sounds in words. So much so that Vanellus vanellus may well have more regional names than any other bird. Lancashire’s chewit calls to Orkney’s teeack, Norfolk’s pie-wipe answers Lothian’s peasiewheep. I’m a child of the TV generation, and I always think when I hear the birds that the Clangers have landed.

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Wind energy overtakes coal as the EU’s second largest form of power capacity but concerns remain over politicians’ enthusiasm for renewables

Renewable energy made up nearly nine-tenths of new power added to Europe’s electricity grids last year, in a sign of the continent’s rapid shift away from fossil fuels.

But industry leaders said they were worried about the lack of political support beyond 2020, when binding EU renewable energy targets end.

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Australian owned, CSIRO-developed battery storage technology tested as possible solution for powering remote, rural communities in India.

Korean-owned zinc refiner ups size of proposed Qld solar farm to 116MW, casting shade on claim renewables are a "manufacturing killer".

With the help of snake handlers and Trish Prendergast, a senior veterinary nurse at a clinic in Townsville, Queensland, the 1.5m-long carpet python manages to regurgitate an entire tennis ball after it was found swollen in a residential yard.

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South Australia threatens to take "decisive action" to regain control of the energy industry. The privately owned generators only have themselves to blame.

AGL says it expects large-scale battery storage will play a critical role in the changing nature of Australia's electricity grid.

A group of prominent US Republicans has proposed a carbon tax that pays cash dividends to Americans.

The way orangutans communicate could shed light on humans' first words.

Fumigation must start immediately to avoid further destruction on the main agricultural area.

AEMO warns of rolling blackouts on Friday for coal-dependent NSW as the summer heatwave continues across Australia. SA faced similar problems on Wednesday – but in that state, renewables are again taking the blame.

As regional forest agreements come up for renewal starting later this year in Tasmania, forest biodiversity continues to decline while jobs and the timber resource are still far from secure.

Tesco’s waste sugar goes to Cornish apiculture scheme as honey bees go short of nectar and rely on keepers’ winter syrup

Waste sugar routinely thrown away by supermarkets is being collected to help feed stricken bees in Britain struggling to get enough nectar to feed themselves.

Related: Pesticides stop bees buzzing and releasing pollen, says study

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Energy retailer raised $100,000 from customers, which will be given out as grants to community-owned energy projects

Amid fresh attacks on renewable energy targets from the federal government and large energy retailer ERM Power, smaller electricity retailer Powershop has raised $100,000 from its customers to be given out as grants to 10 community-owned projects around the country.

Three months ago Powershop launched the Your Community Energy initiative, where they gave customers the opportunity to pay higher rates, which it said would then be distributed to renewable energy projects that were community-owned.

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Global warming has already increased the risk of major disruptions to Pacific rainfall, according to our research published today in Nature Communications. The risk will continue to rise over coming decades, even if global warming during the 21st century is restricted to 2℃ as agreed by the international community under the Paris Agreement.

In recent times, major disruptions have occurred in 1997-98, when severe drought struck Papua New Guinea, Samoa and the Solomon Islands, and in 2010-11, when rainfall caused widespread flooding in eastern Australia and severe flooding in Samoa, and drought triggered a national emergency in Tuvalu.

These rainfall disruptions are primarily driven by the El Niño/La Niña cycle, a naturally occurring phenomenon centred on the tropical Pacific. This climate variability can profoundly change rainfall patterns and intensity over the Pacific Ocean from year to year.

Rainfall belts can move hundreds and sometimes thousands of kilometres from their normal positions. This has major impacts on safety, health, livelihoods and ecosystems as a result of severe weather, drought and floods.

Recent research concluded that unabated growth in greenhouse gas emissions over the 21st century will increase the frequency of such disruptions to Pacific rainfall.

But our new research shows even the greenhouse cuts we have agreed to may not be enough to stop the risk of rainfall disruption from growing as the century unfolds.

Changing climate

In our study we used a large number of climate models from around the world to compare Pacific rainfall disruptions before the Industrial Revolution, during recent history, and in the future to 2100. We considered different scenarios for the 21st century.

One scenario is based on stringent mitigation in which strong and sustained cuts are made to global greenhouse gas emissions. This includes in some cases the extraction of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

In another scenario emissions continue to grow, and remain very high throughout the 21st century. This high-emissions scenario results in global warming of 3.2-5.4℃ by the end of the century (compared with the latter half of the 19th century).

The low-emissions scenario - despite the cuts in emissions - nevertheless results in 0.9-2.3℃ of warming by the end of the century.

Increasing risk

Under the high-emissions scenario, the models project a 90% increase in the number of major Pacific rainfall disruptions by the early 21st century, and a 130% increase during the late 21st century, both relative to pre-industrial times. The latter means that major disruptions will tend to occur every four years on average, instead of every nine.

The increase in the frequency of rainfall disruption in the models arises from an increase in the frequency of El Niño and La Niña events in some models, and an increase in rainfall variability during these events as a result of global warming. This boost occurs even if the character of the sea-surface temperature variability arising from El Niño and La Niña events is unchanged from pre-industrial times.

Although heavy emissions cuts lead to a smaller increase in rainfall disruption, unfortunately even this scenario does not prevent some increase. Under this scenario, the risk of rainfall disruption is projected to be 56% higher during the next three decades, and to remain at least that high for the rest of the 21st century.

The risk has already increased

While changes to the frequency of major changes in Pacific rainfall appear likely in the future, is it possible that humans have already increased the risk of major disruption?

It seems that we have: the frequency of major rainfall disruptions in the climate models had already increased by around 30% relative to pre-industrial times prior to the year 2000.

As the risk of major disruption to Pacific rainfall had already increased by the end of the 20th century, some of the disruption actually witnessed in the real world may have been partially due to the human release of greenhouse gases. The 1982-83 super El Niño event, for example, might have been less severe if global greenhouse emissions had not risen since the Industrial Revolution.

Most small developing island states in the Pacific have a limited capacity to cope with major floods and droughts. Unfortunately, these vulnerable nations could be exposed more often to these events in future, even if global warming is restricted to 2℃.

These impacts will add to the other impacts of climate change, such as rising sea levels, ocean acidification and increasing temperature extremes.

This research was supported by the National Environmental Science Programme and the Australian Climate Change Science Programme.

Brad Murphy, Christine Chung, François Delage, and Hua Ye 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.