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Humpback whales feast on fish in San Francisco Bay – video

The Guardian - Wed, 2016-07-13 23:48

A kayaker spotted humpback whales feeding in San Francisco’s waters on Sunday. Lyrinda Snyderman was out in the bay with three other kayakers when they saw the whales. The humpbacks breached the surface over the course of half an hour to dine on fish. They are likely migrating north

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Microscope observes life of the ocean floor

BBC - Wed, 2016-07-13 23:31
Marine scientists from Israel and California have developed a microscope that for the first time provides a window into the small scale behaviour of marine life.
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Rescued koala's rare condition

BBC - Wed, 2016-07-13 22:55
This koala has heterochromia, so its rescuers called it Bowie; David Bowie actually had anisocoria, unequal pupil sizes.
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TTIP proposal casts doubt on G20 climate pledge, leaked EU draft shows

The Guardian - Wed, 2016-07-13 20:23

Draft proposal reveals new loopholes on a pledge to phase out fossil fuel subsidies within a decade

Trade negotiators in Brussels are proposing new loopholes on a G20 pledge to phase out fossil fuel subsidies within a decade, in the latest leaked TTIP proposals seen by the Guardian.

The EU’s draft text for a trade and sustainable development chapter also appears to draw an equivalence between the need to prevent trade distortions and the fight against climate change.

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Global warming implicated in dinosaur extinction | Howard Lee

The Guardian - Wed, 2016-07-13 20:00

New technique for measuring ancient temperatures finds two pulses of climate warming at the end of the Cretaceous

In a paper published on Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications, scientists from the University of Michigan and the University of Florida show that there were big jumps in climate warming when the dinosaurs went extinct at the end of the Cretaceous. This brings the end-Cretaceous mass extinction in line with the other mass extinction events, which occurred at times of abrupt and sometimes extreme climate change (including the end-Permian, the end-Triassic, the Toarcian, and others).

By employing a relatively new ancient-temperature-measuring technique called “carbonate clumped isotope paleothermometry,” scientists have uncovered an 8ºC jump in seawater temperatures that unfolded rapidly, at the same time as massive CO2 emissions from the Indian Deccan Traps eruptions (“rapidly” here means anything less than about 30,000 years, possibly centuries; such are the limits of time resolution). They also found a second, smaller spike in warming about 150,000 years later, at around the same time as the asteroid impact at Chicxulub in Mexico.

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Solar Impulse 2 lands in Egypt in penultimate stop of its world tour

The Guardian - Wed, 2016-07-13 19:13

Solar-powered plane will next make a final flight to Abu Dhabi where its round-the-world journey will end

The Solar Impulse 2 landed in Cairo on Wednesday for its penultimate stop as the solar-powered plane nears the end of its marathon tour around the world.

After the two-day flight from Spain, just one final leg lies between it and its final destination, Abu Dhabi, where it started its odyssey in March last year.

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India to meet climate goals earlier than promised, says outgoing climate chief

The Guardian - Wed, 2016-07-13 18:49

Prakash Javadekar says India is now a world leader in tackling climate change and other countries need to follow its example, reports Climate Home

India could meet its carbon reduction goals earlier than expected, the country’s outgoing climate minister told a meeting in Delhi on Tuesday.

By 2030, the world’s fourth largest greenhouse gas emitter plans to cut the carbon intensity of GDP up to 35% on 2005 levels and boost the share of clean power in the energy mix to 40%.

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Scientists observe coral polyps fighting turf wars and 'kissing' – video

The Guardian - Wed, 2016-07-13 18:30

Scientists using a new underwater microscope have observed features as small as single cells in organisms in their natural environment. The instrument brought ‘the lab to the ocean, instead of bringing the ocean to the lab’, said study co-author Tali Treibitz from the University of Haifa in Israel. The scientists captured images of millimetre-sized coral polyps in the Red Sea attacking other species of coral in microscopic turf wars. In one colony they saw polyps ‘kissing’ – which they suspected might be for the purpose of exchanging materials

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WWF buys shark fishing licence on Great Barrier Reef to scrap it

The Guardian - Wed, 2016-07-13 18:05

Conservation group seeks help to pay for the $100,000 licence which lets owner drag 1.2km nets along length of the reef

A conservation group has taken the unusual step of buying a commercial shark fishing licence on the Great Barrier Reef, and will retire it, saving the sharks that it would otherwise be used to catch.

WWF said it was now seeking funds to cover the cost of the $100,000 licence, which gives the owner the right to drag a 1.2km net anywhere along the length of the Great Barrier Reef, targeting sharks. It can also be used for fishing with lines to target other species.

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Badger cull expansion 'flies in face of scientific evidence'

The Guardian - Wed, 2016-07-13 17:55

Experts call on new prime minister Theresa May to halt ‘failed’ policy, calling it ‘risky, costly, and inhumane’

The imminent expansion of England’s controversial badger cull “flies in the face of scientific evidence”, according to the nation’s foremost experts, who have called on new prime minister, Theresa May, to halt the “failed” policy.

The scientists say the badger cull, intended to curb tuberculosis in cattle, is a “risky, costly, and inhumane” distraction and may actually increase TB infections.

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Can Malcolm Turnbull do climate and energy policy now?

The Conversation - Wed, 2016-07-13 17:20
Turnbull might be hamstrung by his barely-there majority. AAP Image/Paul Miller

The re-elected Coalition government has the opportunity to revamp its policies on climate change. Transition of the energy sector is key if the 2030 emissions target is to be met. But with a razor-thin majority in Parliament, will Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull have the appetite and internal authority to tackle the challenge?

In contrast to the past three federal elections, climate change policy was not one of the big issues in this campaign. Faced with a fairly comprehensive climate policy blueprint from the Labor Party, the Coalition opted not to say much on the subject. A carbon tax and emissions trading scheme have been ruled out, but the door for climate and energy policy reform has not been slammed shut.

In fact, there has been a clear sense that the government accepts that there needs to be a more comprehensive policy framework than just the subsidy-based Emissions Reductions Fund, with its inherent problems. In 2015, Environment Minister Greg Hunt announced that there will be a climate change policy review during 2017.

But the internal politics of the Liberal Party could yet stand in the way. Turnbull has traditionally supported measures to cut emissions, and this fits with his emphasis on innovation. But many on the right of the party oppose action on climate change.

The fact that the Coalition only just scraped into government might be seen as an argument in favour of more moderate policies. But it could also strengthen the hand of Turnbull’s detractors, including opponents of climate change action.

Is that a price on your carbon?

One tricky issue for the Coalition in the election was the plan for the Emissions Reductions Fund “with safeguards”. In the expert community it is generally thought that the Coalition’s plan has been to transform the current mechanism into a so-called “baseline and credit” scheme or a variant thereof.

Baseline and credit would put a price signal on carbon emissions in electricity and possibly industry. It has drawbacks compared with normal emissions trading, among them that there would be no revenue for the government from selling carbon permits; that it would not fully reflect carbon costs to electricity users; that some or many businesses may not be covered; and that it may perpetuate carbon-related investment uncertainty. Its main attraction is political – it would limit effects on electricity prices, and it has been depicted as something that is not a “carbon price”.

Energy transition

The energy challenge is of an altogether different magnitude. Climate policy needs to be integrated with energy policy, and it must get the transformation of Australia’s power sector under way. As the Deep Decarbonisation project showed, a near-zero-emissions electricity supply by 2050 is at the heart of a low-emissions strategy.

This is possible and affordable, but waiting for it to happen all by itself would take too long.

Unless there is a significant and durable price on carbon, other approaches are needed to get the most emissions-intensive power plants off the system – for example, through a market mechanism for brown coal exit and/or regulated closure of old plants.

Support for new zero-emissions energy is a big open question. Will the Renewable Energy Target be extended, perhaps as a low-emissions energy target? Will there be fixed-price auctions for large-scale renewable energy, such as those in the ACT? Should funding for clean energy research and development be ramped up, and how?

Then there are questions about energy market reform and structural adjustment. How to provide adequate revenue for a future power system that largely relies on renewables, when the existing electricity market was designed for fossil-fuel-powered generators? How to manage the social and economic adjustment in the coal regions?

The government will need to tackle energy transition, and it has the opportunity to make this one of its contributions to help modernise the economy. There might even be some common ground for it in parliament.

Ambition needed

Marginal policy change is not going to do the trick. Australia’s pledge under the Paris Agreement is a 26-28% reduction in emissions by 2030, relative to 2005. This is at the lower end of the range, according to many indicators, and it is likely that the target will need to be strengthened for the next round of international pledges.

Labor’s proposed target is a 45% reduction. This is on the way to much deeper required reductions down the track.

Achieving even a 28% target through domestic reductions would be a big step for Australia. Net national emissions have been roughly flatlining for more than two decades, thanks to falling emissions from land-use change.

Brexit, Trump and the future

Amid the current global destabilisation, there are concerns that climate policy will take a back seat despite the momentum created by the Paris Agreement. In Europe, Brexit, terrorism and refugees are top of the agenda. But unless they herald a global shift towards inward-looking governments or wider economic malaise, Europe’s troubles should have little bearing on the transition to cleaner energy in Asia and Australia.

A Donald Trump presidency, on the other hand, could throw a spanner in the works by providing a rallying point for opponents of climate action. Hillary Clinton as president, however, would push for meaningful climate policy both globally and at home.

Those determined to push ahead will do so regardless of the to and fro in Europe and the United States. China, for example, seems unlikely to waver in its push to modernise its economy and thereby dampen carbon emissions.

Turnbull has a chance to help position Australia for a future in which the carbon-intensive way of doing things is on the way out. We will see whether he chooses to do so – and whether his party room will let him.

The Conversation

Frank Jotzo has received research funding from a range of organisations. He has been a member of various review panels and advisory bodies, most recently as a member of the ACT Climate Change Council and the SA government's low carbon economy expert panel.

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Solar Impulse: Zero-fuel plane lands in Cairo

BBC - Wed, 2016-07-13 16:41
The Sun-powered aircraft Solar Impulse finishes its penultimate flight, landing in Egypt's capital, Cairo, after a 24-hour flight from Seville.
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Action to cut food waste gains momentum across Europe

The Guardian - Wed, 2016-07-13 16:00

France’s ban on supermarkets throwing away unwanted food has led to greater calls for laws on food waste, campaigners say

Efforts to force supermarkets and other businesses to waste less food are gaining momentum following France’s ban on supermarkets throwing out unwanted food, according to campaigners.

Earlier this month MEPs voted 600 to 48 to bring forward laws to end unfair trading practices by supermarkets, many of which lead to overproduction and food being wasted.

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Failure to teach cooking at school 'contributing to £12bn a year food waste'

The Guardian - Wed, 2016-07-13 16:00

Head of government advisory group warns that generations of young people in the UK lack basic cooking skills

A failure to teach children to cook at school is one of the reasons to blame for UK householders throwing away £12bn of food each year, according to a former leading government adviser on food waste.

Liz Goodwin, until last week chief executive of the Waste and Resources Action Programme (Wrap), said that while avoidable food waste had been cut by a fifth in the past decade, reductions had stopped.

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How did Denmark become a leader in the food waste revolution?

The Guardian - Wed, 2016-07-13 16:00

From community food banks to food waste kitchens and even a supermarket, the Danes have embraced the concept

A six-year-old sniffs asparagus suspiciously as his father grapples with a grapefruit and several women admire a selection of cabbages, in search of a bargain.

“Everyone pays 20 kroner (about £2) for a reusable bag to fill with whatever they like,” says Bettina Bach, 31, of Bo Welfare, a social housing project in the Danish city of Horsens that runs the food waste pop-up shop.

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Half of all US food produce is thrown away, new research suggests

The Guardian - Wed, 2016-07-13 15:00

The demand for ‘perfect’ fruit and veg means much is discarded, damaging the climate and leaving people hungry

Americans throw away almost as much food as they eat because of a “cult of perfection”, deepening hunger and poverty, and inflicting a heavy toll on the environment.

Vast quantities of fresh produce grown in the US are left in the field to rot, fed to livestock or hauled directly from the field to landfill, because of unrealistic and unyielding cosmetic standards, according to official data and interviews with dozens of farmers, packers, truckers, researchers, campaigners and government officials.

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Coalition’s myth about renewables and high electricity prices

RenewEconomy - Wed, 2016-07-13 14:49
Coalition says it is "the only ones that can protect against the electricity price rises". But in week after its re-election, electricity prices were nearly double those during the carbon tax, and soaring gas prices and the investment drought in renewable energy are to blame.
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This almost-island on the Welsh coast is a nowhere becoming somewhere

The Guardian - Wed, 2016-07-13 14:30

Morfa Harlech, North Wales The eye follows the incoming tide across the beach, racing into dunes green with marram grass

I know these plants: pyramidal orchid, lady’s bedstraw, common centaury, restharrow and wild thyme. I saw them up the Windmill hill only yesterday evening and to me they spell summer in the surviving fragments of limestone grassland on Wenlock Edge. I did not expect to find them so gloriously contradictory at the seaside.

A tumble of dunes barricades the golf course below Harlech castle against Cardigan Bay, the dune shapes mimicking the architecture of Snowdonia’s mountains behind them. I always fall for that trick of the sublime, looking landward from the sea: the silver of the rippled flow, the lone lost crab and scribble of seaweed.

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Wind energy supplied 83% of South Australia’s electricity on Monday

RenewEconomy - Wed, 2016-07-13 14:30
Wind energy delivered more than two-thirds of South Australia’s electricity over the weekend, and more on Monday.
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Robot cars and the fear gap

RenewEconomy - Wed, 2016-07-13 14:29
Considering the major role of human error in car accidents, computer assistance and eventual control should lead to a big reduction of death and injury.
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