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One of the worst instances of mangrove forest dieback ever recorded globally struck Australia’s Gulf of Carpentaria in the summer of 2015-16. A combination of extreme temperatures, drought and lowered sea levels likely caused this dieback, according to our investigation published in the journal Marine and Freshwater Research.

The dieback, which coincided with the Great Barrier Reef’s worst ever bleaching event, affected 1,000km of coastline between the Roper River in the Northern Territory and Karumba in Queensland.

Views of mangrove shorelines impacted by dieback event in late 2015, east of Limmen Bight River, Northern Territory (imagery: NC Duke, June 2016).

About 7,400 hectares, or 6%, of the gulf’s mangrove forest had died. Losses were most severe in the NT, where around 5,500ha of mangroves suffered dieback. Some of the gulf’s many catchments, such as the Robinson and McArthur rivers, lost up to 26% of their mangroves.

Views of seaward mangrove fringes showing foreshore sections of minor (left side) and extreme (right side) damage as observed in June 2016 between Limmen and MacArthur rivers, NT. These might effectively also represent before and after scenarios, but together show how some shoreline sections have been left exposed and vulnerable. NC Duke The gulf, a remote but valuable place

The Gulf of Carpentaria is a continuous sweep of wide tidal wetlands fringed by mangroves, meandering estuaries, creeks and beaches. Its size and naturalness makes it globally exceptional.

An apron of broad mudflats and seagrass meadows supports thousands of marine turtles and dugongs. A thriving fishing industry worth at least A$30 million ultimately depends on mangroves.

Dieback of mangroves around Karumba in Queensland, with surviving saltmarsh, October 2016. NC Duke

Mangroves and saltmarsh plants are uniquely adapted to extreme and fickle coastal shoreline ecosystems. They normally cope with salt and daily inundation, having evolved specialised physiological and morphological traits, such as salt excretion and unique breathing roots.

But in early 2016, local tour operators and consultants doing bird surveys alerted authorities to mangroves dying en masse along entire shorelines. They reported skeletonised mangroves over several hundred kilometres, with the trees appearing to have died simultaneously. They sent photos and even tracked down satellite images to confirm their concerns. The NT government supported the first investigative surveys in June 2016.

Areas affected by severe mangrove dieback in late 2015 (grey shaded) along southern shorelines of Australia’s Gulf of Carpentaria from Northern Territory to Queensland. Aerial surveys (red lines) were undertaken on three occasions during 2016 to cover around 600km of the 1000km impacted. NC Duke

In the end, the emails from citizen scientists nailed the timing: “looks like it started maybe December 2015”; the severity: “I’ve seen dieback before, but not like this”; and the cause: “guessing it may be the consequence of the four-year drought”.

Our investigation used satellite imagery dating back to 1972 to confirm that the dieback was an unparalleled event. Further aerial helicopter surveys and mapping during 2016, after the dieback, validated the severity of the event extending across the entire gulf. Mangrove dieback has been recorded in Australia in the past but over decades, not months.

Mangroves losses (red) and surviving mangroves (green) around the shoreline and mouth of the Limmen Bight River, south-western Gulf of Carpentaria, April 2015 to April 2016. NC Duke, J. Kovacs Mysterious patterns in the dieback

We still don’t fully understand what caused the dieback. But we can rule out the usual suspects of chemical or oil spills, or severe storm events. It was also significant that losses occurred simultaneously across a 1,000km front.

There were also a number of tell-tale patterns in the dieback. The worst-impacted locations had more or less complete loss of shoreline-fringing mangroves. This mirrored a general loss of mangroves fringing tidal saltpans and saltmarshes along this semi-arid coast.

Mangroves were unaffected where they kept their feet wet along estuaries and rivers. This, as well as the timing and severity of the event, points to a connection with extreme weather and climate patterns, and particularly the month-long drop of 20cm in local sea levels.

Extreme weather the likely culprit

We believe the dieback is best explained by drought, hot water, hot air and the temporary drop in sea level. Each of these was correlated with the strong 2015-16 El Niño. Let’s take a look at each in turn.

First, the dieback happened at the end of an unusually long period of severe drought conditions, which prevailed for much of 2015 following four years of below-average rainfall. This caused severe moisture stress in mangroves growing alongside saltmarsh and saltpans.

Second, the dieback coincided with hot sea temperatures that also caused coral bleaching along the Great Barrier Reef. While mangroves are known to be relatively heat-tolerant, they have their limits.

The air temperatures recorded at the time of the mangrove dieback, particularly from February to September 2015, were also exceptionally high.

Views of mangrove shorelines impacted by dieback event in late 2015, north of Karumba, Queensland (imagery: NC Duke, Oct 2016).

Third, the sea level dropped by up to 20cm at the time of the dieback when the mangroves were both heat- and moisture-stressed. Sea levels commonly drop in the western Pacific (and rise in the eastern Pacific) during strong El Niño years: and the 2015-2016 El Niño was the third-strongest recorded.

The mangroves appear to have died of thirst. Mangroves may be hardy plants, but when sea levels drop, reducing inundation, coupled with already heat-and-drought-stressed weather conditions, then the plants will die – much like your neglected pot plants.

We don’t yet know what role human-caused climate change played in these particular weather events or El Niño. But the unprecedented extent of the dieback, the confluence of extreme climate events and the coincidence with the bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef mean the role of climate change will be of critical interest in the global response to mangrove decline.

What future for mangroves?

The future for mangroves around the world is mixed. Thanks to climate change, droughts are expected to become hotter and more frequent. If the gulf’s mangroves experience further dieback in the future, this will have serious implications for Australia’s northern fisheries including the iconic prawn fishery, mudcrab and fin fish fisheries. All species are closely associated with healthy mangroves.

We don’t know whether the mangroves will recover or not. But there is now a further risk of shoreline erosion and retreat, particularly if the region is struck by a cyclone – and this may have already begun with recent cyclonic weather and flooding in the gulf. The movement of mangrove sediments will lead to massive releases of carbon uniquely buried among their roots.

Mangroves are among the most carbon-rich forests in the tropics and semi-tropics and much of this carbon could enter the atmosphere.

Aerial view of severe mangrove dieback near Karumba in Queensland, October 2016. NC Duke

Now we urgently need to understand how mangroves died at large and smaller scales (such as river catchments), so we can develop strategies to help them adapt to future change.

Australia’s top specialists and managers will be reviewing the current situation at a dedicated workshop during next week’s Australian Mangrove and Saltmarsh Network annual conference in Hobart.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.

Pipeline from Tennant Creek to Mount Isa could bring coal seam gas from the Territory into the eastern states market amid power crisis

An $800m gas pipeline from the Northern Territory to Queensland is one step closer after the federal government granted environmental approval for construction.

The approval, which carries conditions to protect the native death adder snake, had not been expected by the NT government for several weeks, and follows Malcolm Turnbull’s statement that his government will consider “all measures” to ensure energy security.

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Sharp intake of breath on reading Chitra Ramaswamy’s statement that Pembrokeshire is the only coastal national park (Last Night’s TV, G2, 8 March). True, it is the only fully coastal one, but here in North Yorkshire we have the best national treasure of all in a park with heather moors, beautiful villages nestling in valleys, heritage and craftspeople aplenty as well as a delightful varied coastline.
Felicity Brown
Nether Poppleton, North Yorkshire

• Why is Richard Curtis’s film so popular (Love Act-two-ally, G2, 13 March)? It features a prime minister who stands up to an American president. Could only happen in fiction.
John Loader
Leyburn, North Yorkshire

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Packaging – much of it single-use food wrapping – has created a rubbish problem that now pollutes every corner of the world. Manufacturers got us into this mess, but it’s up to us to dig ourselves out – and here’s how

In 2003, I was told by a restaurant owner on a Thai island that local fishermen used to wrap their lunch in banana leaves, which they would then casually toss overboard when done. That was OK, because the leaves decayed and the fish ate the scraps. But in the past decade, he said, while plastic wrap had rapidly replaced banana leaves, old habits had died hard – and that was why the beach was fringed with a crust of plastic. Beyond the merely unsightly, this plastic congregates in continent-scale garbage gyres in our oceans, being eaten by plankton, then fish; then quite possibly it’ll reach your plate ...

This is a worldwide problem – we can’t point the finger at Thai fishermen. The west started this. The developing world justifiably yearns for its living standards and, with it, its unsustainable convenience culture.

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Competition watchdog will urge companies to sell to the domestic market, as South Australia reveals its plan to head off further power cuts

The head of Australia’s competition watchdog will urge gas companies to support the domestic market to ensure struggling manufacturers don’t go to the wall, as the Turnbull government mulls options for boosting domestic gas supply to head off forecast shortages.

The chairman of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, Rod Sims, will outline his views on the east coast gas crisis in a speech in Sydney on Tuesday, as the South Australian government unveils a blueprint to shore up the state’s unreliable power network, perhaps including new investment in baseload power and storage.

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Corporate capture of academic research by the fossil fuel industry is an elephant in the room and a threat to tackling climate change.

On February 16, the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center hosted a film screening of the “Rational Middle Energy Series.” The university promoted the event as “Finding Energy’s Rational Middle” and described the film’s motivation as “a need and desire for a balanced discussion about today’s energy issues.”

Who can argue with balance and rationality? And with Harvard’s stamp of approval, surely the information presented to students and the public would be credible and reliable. Right?

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Industry wants more support from federal government now prime minister has ‘taken interest in the tweets of an American billionaire’

Malcolm Turnbull should encourage Australia’s battery energy storage industry now he has “taken interest in the tweets of an American billionaire”, Zen Energy chairman Ross Garnaut says.

Garnaut was referring to Elon Musk, the billionaire co-founder of electric car giant Tesla, who tweeted that Tesla could solve the power shortage issue causing price spikes and blackouts in South Australia within 100 days by installing 100-300 megawatt hours of battery storage.

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Llanon, Ceredigion The paths retain their sense of age, hinting at centuries of daily journeys from homestead to field and back

Between the village of Llanon and the sea lies an area of flat land perhaps a kilometre wide, bordered to north and south by minor rivers. On the large scale maps of the area it is labelled Morfa Esgob – which translates roughly as Bishop’s Land. In contrast to the steep, thin-soiled hill pastures inland it is a favoured spot. Well-drained and quick to warm in spring, thanks to the great heat store of Cardigan Bay, the land is now mostly grazed, but both map and landscape hint at a more complex past.

The tithe map of the local parish, recently digitised and interpreted as part of the Cynefin project, captures a snapshot of the land as it was in the 1840s. It reveals Morfa Esgob as a collection of several hundred interlocking “slangs” – narrow strips of farmland – each of a size that could be managed by a single household.

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Labor's WA election win locks in a $19.5m commitment to Carnegie Clean Energy's 20MW Albany Wave Energy Project.

The rise in wholesale electricity prices is delivering huge new incentives to solar PV and battery storage.

Clean Energy Finance Corporation backs three more big solar projects in Queensland and Victoria, as ERM finally unveils its first major renewable off take deal.

South Australia to unveil new energy policy on Tuesday, amid speculation it may support two major battery storage projects.

New report highlights measure taken to protect NSW grid from potential failure of Queensland's most modern coal plant. South Australia may well wonder: why not us?

With any luck, the series of weekend Tweets between tech billionaires Elon Musk and Australian Mike Cannon-brookes will be the wake up call needed to shake Australia's politicians, regulators and media from their delusion that fossil fuels are the only answer to Australia's so-called energy crisis.

Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 17 March 1917

Surrey
Hoar frost turned to dew as the horses came out into the farm stable-yard this morning. They knew it was a strange hand that clattered the chain harness on the cobbles. Working for years in one place, they recognise even the footstep which goes to the manger, and intelligence reveals itself in their eyes when they turn and stoop their heads for the collar to slip on. There is then a little shrinking, half apprehension, half mental inquiry, as though in study of your character, and when you speak the glance is responsive to the tone. It is almost the same with each horse when the stubble is reached and his shoulders begin to strain. Drop the long rein on his back in an unaccustomed way and you note the twitching of his flank; it takes much gentle stroking with the palm about his head before you come slightly into favour as a friend. But once this is accomplished how much more readily work is done. Your horse, you perceive, is a skilled labourer on the land.

Milder nights – a few – have brought daffodils into bloom in sheltered hollows. They are small and pale, but when, not far away, the yellower beak of the blackbird is seen digging busily it is certain that new life has come. The tips of daisies are a rich pink in the early sun. The ditch by the side of the path which leads up to the wood appears greener than yesterday; a missel-thrush is perched on an ash bough holding a stalk of straw; the honey-suckle is in leaf; just within the wood the sharp, short call of a gold-crest is heard. It is a long wait, but hardly wasted time, before a glimpse, and one only, can be caught of the bright tuft seemingly dancing away.

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For too long, no one suspected that any car manufacturer was cheating. Instead it was thought to be a weakness in the test

It is amazing that the Volkswagen and diesel emissions scandal was not discovered earlier. In 2003 nitrogen dioxide alongside London’s Marylebone Road increased by around 20%. As we approached the 2010 legal compliance date, concentrations from traffic went up, not down, and diesel cars were shown to be much more polluting than the official tests led us to believe.

However, according to the EU parliament’s recent inquiry, no one suspected that any car manufacture was cheating. Instead it was thought to be a weakness in the test.

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No matter how hard we dig, the Earth's resources are ultimately finite. Mining image from www.shutterstock.com

Our economy and society ultimately depend on natural resources: land, water, material (such as metals) and energy. But some scientists have recognised that there are hard limits to the amount of these resources we can use. It is our consumption of these resources that is behind environmental problems such as extinction, pollution and climate change.

Even supposedly “green” technologies such as renewable energy require materials, land and solar exposure, and cannot grow indefinitely on this (or any) planet.

Most economic policy around the world is driven by the goal of maximising economic growth (or increase in gross domestic product – GDP). Economic growth usually means using more resources. So if we can’t keep using more and more resources, what does this mean for growth?

Most conventional economists and policymakers now endorse the idea that growth can be “decoupled” from environmental impacts – that the economy can grow, without using more resources and exacerbating environmental problems.

Even the then US president, Barack Obama, in a recent piece in Science argued that the US economy could continue growing without increasing carbon emissions thanks to the rollout of renewable energy.

But there are many problems with this idea. In a recent conference of the Australia-New Zealand Society for Ecological Economics (ANZSEE), we looked at why decoupling may be a delusion.

The decoupling delusion

Given that there are hard limits to the amount of resources we can use, genuine decoupling would be the only thing that could allow GDP to grow indefinitely.

Drawing on evidence from the 600-page Economic Report to the President, Obama referred to trends during the course of his presidency showing that the economy grew by more than 10% despite a 9.5% fall in carbon dioxide emissions from the energy sector. In his words:

…this “decoupling” of energy sector emissions and economic growth should put to rest the argument that combating climate change requires accepting lower growth or a lower standard of living.

Others have pointed out similar trends, including the International Energy Agency which last year – albeit on the basis of just two years of data – argued that global carbon emissions have decoupled from economic growth.

But we would argue that what people are observing (and labelling) as decoupling is only partly due to genuine efficiency gains. The rest is a combination of three illusory effects: substitution, financialisation and cost-shifting.

Substituting the problem

Here’s an example of substitution of energy resources. In the past, the world evidently decoupled GDP growth from buildup of horse manure in city streets, by substituting other forms of transport for horses. We’ve also decoupled our economy from whale oil, by substituting it with fossil fuels. And we can substitute fossil fuels with renewable energy.

These changes result in “partial” decoupling – that is, decoupling from specific environmental impacts (manure, whales, carbon emissions). But substituting carbon-intensive energy with cleaner, or even carbon-neutral, energy does not free our economies of their dependence on finite resources.

Let’s get something straight: Obama’s efforts to support clean energy are commendable. We can – and must – envisage a future powered by 100% renewable energy, which may help break the link between economic activity and climate change. This is especially important now that President Donald Trump threatens to undo even some of these partial successes.

But if you think we have limitless solar energy to fuel limitless clean, green growth, think again. For GDP to keep growing we would need ever-increasing numbers of wind turbines, solar farms, geothermal wells, bioenergy plantations and so on – all requiring ever-increasing amounts of material and land.

Nor is efficiency (getting more economic activity out of each unit of energy and materials) the answer to endless growth. As some of us pointed out in a recent paper, efficiency gains could prolong economic growth and may even look like decoupling (for a while), but we will inevitably reach limits.

Moving money

The economy can also appear to grow without using more resources, through growth in financial activities such as currency trading, credit default swaps and mortgage-backed securities. Such activities don’t consume much in the way of resources, but make up an increasing fraction of GDP.

So if GDP is growing, but this growth is increasingly driven by a ballooning finance sector, that would give the appearance of decoupling.

Meanwhile most people aren’t actually getting any more bang for their buck, as most of the wealth remains in the hands of the few. It’s ephemeral growth at best: ready to burst at the next crisis.

Shifting the cost onto poorer nations

The third way to create the illusion of decoupling is to move resource-intensive modes of production away from the point of consumption. For instance, many goods consumed in Western nations are made in developing nations.

Consuming those goods boosts GDP in the consuming country, but the environmental impact takes place elsewhere (often in a developing economy where it may not even be measured).

In their 2012 paper, Thomas Wiedmann and co-authors comprehensively analysed domestic and imported materials for 186 countries. They showed that rich nations have appeared to decouple their GDP from domestic raw material consumption, but as soon as imported materials are included they observe “no improvements in resource productivity at all”. None at all.

From treating symptoms to finding a cure

One reason why decoupling GDP and its growth from environmental degradation may be harder than conventionally thought is that this development model (growth of GDP) associates value with systematic exploitation of natural systems and also society. As an example, felling and selling old-growth forests increases GDP far more than protecting or replanting them.

Defensive consumption – that is, buying goods and services (such as bottled water, security fences, or private insurance) to protect oneself against environmental degradation and social conflict – is also a crucial contributor to GDP.

Rather than fighting and exploiting the environment, we need to recognise alternative measures of progress. In reality, there is no conflict between human progress and environmental sustainability; well-being is directly and positively connected with a healthy environment.

Many other factors that are not captured by GDP affect well-being. These include the distribution of wealth and income, the health of the global and regional ecosystems (including the climate), the quality of trust and social interactions at multiple scales, the value of parenting, household work and volunteer work. We therefore need to measure human progress by indicators other than just GDP and its growth rate.

The decoupling delusion simply props up GDP growth as an outdated measure of well-being. Instead, we need to recouple the goals of human progress and a healthy environment for a sustainable future.

James Ward works for the University of South Australia. He is also privately affiliated with Sustainable Population Australia.

Keri Chiveralls works for Central Queensland University.

Lorenzo Fioramonti, Paul Sutton, and Robert Costanza do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.

Activists will challenge permission granted to Cuadrilla for test fracking sites near Blackpool as pressure mounts over the cost of policing the protests

The government will go to court this week to defend test drilling at a fracking site in Lancashire as it comes under pressure to pay hundreds of thousands of pounds to cover the cost of policing anti-fracking protests.

The high court in Manchester will hear two cases on Wednesday that pit Sajid Javid, the communities secretary, against protesters who oppose the permission granted to fracking companies for test sites near Blackpool.

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Figure rises for second consecutive year, says Massachusetts’ top shark expert, warning of ‘public safety issue’ despite no deaths in state’s waters since 1936

Great white sharks are swimming toward the waters off Massachusetts in rising numbers, scientists say, after a second consecutive year showing an increase in predators to Cape Cod.

The latest data from a multiyear study of the ocean predators found that the number of sharks in waters off the vacation haven appeared to be on the rise, said Greg Skomal, a senior scientist with the Massachusetts division of marine fisheries, and the state’s top shark expert.

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MPs condemn ‘waste of money’ as documents show controversial £2bn privatisation has cost taxpayers at least £1m in banking and legal fees

The troubled £2bn privatisation of the Green Investment Bank has already cost at least £1m of taxpayer money in consultancy fees, official documents have revealed.

Ministers have promised that the sale of the bank, which has invested in green projects from offshore windfarms to energy-saving street lights, will deliver value for taxpayers’ money. An announcement on the sale to Australian investment bank Macquarie was expected in January but has yet to materialise amid strong political opposition.

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