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Video: First turbine blade arrives at Queensland’s Dulacca wind farm
New video shows the first of many massive wind turbine blades arriving at the 180MW Dulacca wind farm in Queensland's south-east.
The post Video: First turbine blade arrives at Queensland’s Dulacca wind farm appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Cannon-Brookes has achieved a stunning victory at AGL: Now for the hard part
Cannon-Brookes' stunning victory over AGL is probably the biggest story yet in Australia's still fledgling green energy transition.
The post Cannon-Brookes has achieved a stunning victory at AGL: Now for the hard part appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Grok welcomes AGL demerger backdown, warns against asset sale
Cannon-Brookes' investment arm, Grok Ventures, welcomes AGL's demerger backdown and will seek input into 'strategic review' and board renewal.
The post Grok welcomes AGL demerger backdown, warns against asset sale appeared first on RenewEconomy.
A first look at federal Labor’s emissions plan finds it wholly insufficient
Labor has good intentions on climate and net-zero emissions, but not much of a plan. And it needs to get off the fence on new coal and gas extraction.
The post A first look at federal Labor’s emissions plan finds it wholly insufficient appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Littleproud backs net zero target after ousting Joyce, Dutton goes for bill shock
David Littleproud says Nationals are "moving forward" on climate after ousting Joyce, Dutton elected as Liberals leader and targets bill shock.
The post Littleproud backs net zero target after ousting Joyce, Dutton goes for bill shock appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Energy and Carbon Analyst, Reputex – Melbourne
Peat soil fires: Campaigners say England's 'rainforests' illegally burned
AGL dumps demerger plan, announces management and board clean out
AGL dumps its demerger strategy and announces it CEO, chairman and other directors will leave after conceding defeat to tech billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes.
The post AGL dumps demerger plan, announces management and board clean out appeared first on RenewEconomy.
11,000 litres of water to make one litre of milk? New questions about the freshwater impact of NZ dairy farming
‘I’m so angry, I’m wild’: the never-ending wait to clean up asbestos town Wittenoom
The WA government has announced former asbestos mining town of Wittenoom officially closed. But will it get cleaned up? For one man, time is running out
Deep in the heart of Western Australia’s outback, Maitland Parker is fighting the biggest battle of his life, and it is not because he is dying of cancer.
The Banjima elder’s mob have lived around the area now known as Wittenoom for tens of thousands of years, but he can no longer go there. The eerily striking Pilbara town – at the foot of a deep gorge, 15 hours’ drive north-east of Perth – is blanketed in the deadliest type of asbestos, crocidolite. This has earned it the unwanted accolade of being the “largest contaminated site in the southern hemisphere”.
Continue reading...The Guardian view on British butterflies: declining beauty | Editorial
Victims of intensive farming and the climate emergency, butterflies are beautiful – and vital
The British are remarkably lucky, lepidopterally speaking: some of the most common butterflies to frequent the country are staggeringly beautiful. The peacock, with its four spectacular “eyes” set on wings of velvet burgundy, is a glorious sight as it suns itself, wings held open. The modest common blue, sometimes seen in urban gardens, has a delicate upperwing the colour of an early summer sky, and an underwing speckled with dots and smudges, like characters in a yet-to-be-decoded language. Or there’s the painted lady – a large, handsome chequerboard of amber, chestnut and flecks of white. A migrant to British shores, it flies from southern Europe and north Africa each spring. These remarkable travellers are beginning to cross the English Channel now, the last leg of an epic, seemingly impossible journey. In the autumn, their progeny will fly back south.
But all is not well for British butterflies. Britain has – depending on how you count them – 58 species (compared with 2,500 or so of moths). Research conducted by the charity Butterfly Conservation has found that 24 of these are now threatened. The downward trend in numbers is long-term: a serious decline began to take hold after the second world war when intensive farming methods were adopted. Unpredictable, extreme weather patterns and the use of nitrate fertiliser (which encourages grass on farmland to grow thick and lush when butterflies often prefer it sparse and short) are also having an insidious effect.
Continue reading...G7 decide to “predominantly” decarbonise grid by 2035, but drop 2030 coal exit date
G7 commit to making their electricity systems “predominantly” carbon-free by 2035, but stopped short of setting a concrete date for exiting coal.
The post G7 decide to “predominantly” decarbonise grid by 2035, but drop 2030 coal exit date appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Do wood burners add to air pollution in cities? Yes, say citizen scientists
Pioneering Bristol study blames the solid-fuel burners in people’s homes for breaches of World Health Organisation guidelines
Like many parts of the country, Bristol has experienced a huge rise in the number of houses installing wood burners over the past decade. But as they have proliferated, mainly in the wealthier parts of the city where many Victorian and Georgian houses have been renovated, so too have fears that they cause pollution.
And now a group of citizen scientists taking part in the first community-led project targeting toxic smoke from wood burners has discovered new evidence about their dangers.
Continue reading...Why scientists are also watching animal YouTube videos
Victorian and Tasmanian governments under fire for laws that target environmental protesters
Anti-logging protesters reject state governments’ claims new laws are necessary to protect workers’ safety
Governments in two Australian states have been accused of undermining democracy by introducing legislation designed to criminalise environmental protests.
In Victoria, protesters attempting to prevent native forest logging would face 12 months’ jail or more than $21,000 in fines, and bans from protest areas under laws proposed last week by the Andrews Labor government.
Continue reading...Water runner: 200-marathon journey begins in desert and dust – in pictures
On World Water Day on 22 March, Mina Guli started a challenge to run 200 marathons across 200 countries in a single year to draw attention to the global water crisis. She has run 27 over seven weeks throughout Australia, and aims to complete the remainder – in Central Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Europe, India, Latin America, South East Asia, Mexico and the US – by March 2023, when the UN Water Conference is held in New York.
‘Australia has some of the driest places on the planet. However, while I completed these marathons, Australians confronted another harsh reality of the water crisis as they dealt with the deluge of heavy periods of rain and flooding throughout News South Wales and Queensland,’ she says
Continue reading...Loss of EU funding clips wings of vital crow study in Cambridge
Laboratory chief blames Brexit for closure as money for corvid brain power research dries up
One of Britain’s most important, and unusual, centres for studying cognition is facing imminent closure as a result of Brexit. Set up 22 years ago to study the minds of crows, rooks and other birds noted for their intelligence, the Cambridge Comparative Cognition Laboratory is set to cease operations in July.
Its director, Professor Nicola Clayton, told the Observer she was devastated by the prospect of ending her research there. Nor was she in any doubt about the prime reason for the centre’s closure.
Continue reading...Rewilding, or just a greenwashed land grab? It all depends on who benefits | Eleanor Salter
Such schemes should be celebrated only when local people and democratic institutions lead the way
Few environmental ventures have captured the popular imagination quite like rewilding. For decades, campaigners have been clamouring for the restoration of natural ecosystems as an urgent response to climate breakdown, and as a good in itself. And now it counts more than just environmentalists among its advocates – big business and the wealthy are getting involved too.
Across the UK, hundreds of thousands of acres are being snapped up for the purpose of rewilding by businesses, billionaires and asset managers. Asos billionaire Anders Povlsen and his wife, Anne, are now Scotland’s largest landowners. In a manifesto of sorts, addressed to the people of Scotland, the couple wrote that their intention was to “restore our parts of the Highlands to their former magnificent natural state and repair the harm that man has inflicted on them”. The investment companies Aviva and Standard Life have also bought land to plant forests and restore peatland. The brewery and pub chain Brewdog is planting “the biggest ever forest” in Scotland; while pop star Ed Sheeran is “trying to rewild as much of the UK as [he] can”.
Eleanor Salter writes about climate, culture and politics
Continue reading...Beekeepers and communists: how environmentalists started a global conversation
The world’s longest serving environment correspondent explains the origins of a slow and continuing journey
It all began with Högertrafikomläggningen, Swedish for “the right-hand traffic reorganisation”.
On 3 September 1967, Sweden switched from driving on the left to driving on the right. The change mainly took place at night, but in Stockholm and Malmö all traffic stopped for most of the weekend while intersections were reconfigured.
Continue reading...CP Daily: Friday May 27, 2022
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