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It is easy sometimes to wonder whether our governments care about anything except money; yet they refuse to put a monetary value on those aspects of life that lend enchantment (Mary Dejevsky, Quality of life has a price. The frackers should pay it, 17 October). A beautiful view is one of these; so is peace and quiet. So is the ability to keep one’s windows open at night.

These blessings are disappearing at great speed, as the skies fill up, and as lorries, cars and machines are added to our beloved landscapes. We are told that “those affected by fracking” might be compensated, but I do not believe that many people would rather have £10,000 than the peace and quiet, and the grassy view that will vanish, with their clean drinking water, as the frackers appear. It is generally noise that provides the majority of council complaints. For example, between January and September 2014, councils in the UK received 200,220 noise complaints, almost half the total number (Report, 18 March 2014).

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Some of the giants of the dinosaur family may have arisen in South America and crossed over Antarctica to Australia about 100 million years ago, new fossil evidence suggests.

The European Union’s push away from fossil fuels toward renewables, along with falling costs, has seen offshore wind thrive with turbines being installed from the Irish to the Baltic Seas, reports Environment 360

On a sunny October morning, our boat passes the run-down relicts of Liverpool’s maritime past and heads down the river Mersey and into the Irish Sea. As we steam offshore, I see in the distance a cluster of tall structures that soon reveal themselves to be towers of a wind turbine array. Arriving at the windfarm, six miles offshore, the turbines rise as high as 650ft, taller than the tallest church in the world. Each of the turbines’ three shiny metallic rotor blades is nearly 300ft long.

“A single rotation of an eight-megawatt turbine will cover the daily electricity consumption of an average British household,” says Benj Sykes, vice president of Dong Energy Wind Power, the company that is constructing and co-owns this wind project, as the boat rocks in five-foot swells.

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The Ogoni leader and son of renowned Niger delta environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa has died from a stroke in London, aged 47

The president of Nigeria has joined politicians, environmental activists and others to pay tribute to Ken Wiwa, the Ogoni leader and critic of Shell and other western oil companies in the Niger delta, who has died from a stroke in London.

Wiwa, the eldest son of Nigerian author Ken Saro-Wiwa, who was executed in 1995 after leading a peaceful uprising by the Ogoni people to stop Shell from polluting their oil-rich area of the delta, was a journalist with the Guardian who later became an adviser to three Nigerian presidents.

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Munganga Nzonga Jacques died in a region of Kahuzi Biega national park previously believed to be safe for the gorillas, Mongabay reports

On October 4, a park ranger was killed in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Kahuzi Biega national park while trying to protect the park’s rare Grauer’s gorillas.

The ranger, Munganga Nzonga Jacques, died at the age of 26. He was killed in the Tshivanga region of the park — an area that was previously believed to be safe for the gorillas, according to a statement by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS).

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Scores of spectacular and rare undersea species have been found on expeditions to some of the deepest trenches in the Pacific Ocean.

Kumbuka, an endangered lowland gorilla, escaped from his enclosure in London zoo on 13 October. It was later discovered he drank five litres of undiluted blackcurrant squash before being returned to his space. The zoo says Kumbuka was never a threat to visitors

• London Zoo gorilla drank five litres of blackcurrant juice after escaping enclosure
  

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Bacchus Wilson Panyonnoh, a 35-year-old palm oil worker, and Lee Sworh, a community activist, live in the remote forests of south-east Liberia. Both have been affected by the arrival of Golden Veroleum Liberia to build one of the country’s largest palm oil plantations. For Panyonnoh, it offers the chance of a better life but Sworh wants it off the land

• Liberia: the growth of a new palm oil frontier

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Europe's Schiaparelli lander did not behave as expected as it headed down to the surface of Mars on Wednesday, data shows.

Scientists in Italy have discovered how our brains can be tricked into feeling disembodied from our own limbs.

Japanese fleets have killed more than 300 minke whales in the Southern Ocean despite a court ruling and three-decade-old ban

Japan is likely to face international criticism at a whaling summit this week for killing whales in the Southern Ocean in defiance of a court ruling and a three-decade-old ban.

Japanese fleets killed more than 300 minke whales, many of them pregnant, when they resumed so-called scientific whaling in 2015-16 after a hiatus the year before because the international court of justice decided the hunts were not scientific and should cease.

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In a letter seen by the Guardian, European parliament president, Martin Schulz, warns EU chief, Jean Claude-Juncker, that inaction over a stalled review of the EU’s nature directives is jeopardising EU biodiversity targets

An impasse in Brussels over changes to the EU’s pioneering nature laws has pitted the president of the European parliament, Martin Schulz, against the bloc’s chief, Jean Claude-Juncker, in private correspondence seen by the Guardian.

More than a thousand animal and plant species – and 500 types of wild bird – are protected by the EU’s nature laws.

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Some 73% of the British public polled by ComRes support onshore windfarms in contrast with government decisions to block them

Public support for onshore windfarms is far higher than widely believed, according to a new opinion poll, even in rural areas.

Wind turbines are also far more popular than fracking or nuclear power, contrasting with the UK government’s decision to block onshore windfarms but back shale gas exploration and new nuclear power plants.

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ROUGH LANDING: Although fears grow for the ExoMars lander, scientists say the mission has been a success. Here's what we know so far.

Results of annual report card based on data collected before bleaching killed a fifth of the reef’s coral, suggesting next year’s results will be even worse

The Great Barrier Reef has been given a D on a report card for its overall health by the federal and Queensland governments for the fifth year in a row.

The results of the annual report card were based on data collected before this year’s climate change-induced bleaching event that killed about a fifth of the reef’s coral, suggesting next year’s results will be even worse.

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The market operator seems happy to let the blame for the South Australia blackout fall on wind energy, but questions about its own role are warranted, particularly because it seems to have totally ignored a report prepared a decade ago that envisaged a similar scenario.

Frosterley, Weardale The footpaths were silent and deserted, but, at every turn, there were signs of the days when they echoed with the sounds of human labour

On a windless morning, when the sun had barely reached sufficient elevation to skim the dew on the grass, the footpaths around the old quarries were silent and deserted. And yet, at every turn, there were signs of days when this valley echoed with the sound of human voices and people’s labour.

I stood among the ruins of Harehope Gill lead mine, where only a single wall still stands, and tried to imagine it two centuries ago, when it was at its productive peak: the clop of hooves as ponies dragged squeaky-wheeled wagons laden with lead ore from the mine level tunnel; the thud of picks on rock; clanging shovels; rattle of broken stone tipped on to spoil heaps; and the shouts and curses of labouring miners. Now, just silence, except for the trickling of water.

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Queensland's 50% renewable target is a great idea and achievable, but its current plans will need radical change.

NSW says it has accepted an unsolicited offer from Australian Super and IFM investors to buy 50.4% of utility Ausgrid for just over $16bn.

Australians are becoming more aware of where their meat comes from, but it's still and ethical minefield. Vicki/Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND

Australia has a long-standing history as a country that loves its meat. Meat production and processing in Australia occupies over half of the land mass, makes an important contribution to the Australian economy and employs over 53,000 people.

Meat also has deep cultural and social significance, as seen through Meat and Livestock Australia’s most recent campaigns.

Debates around eating meat are not new. But a new SBS documentary starting tonight, For the Love of Meat, examining where Australia’s beef, chicken and pork comes from, will spark more questions about if and how we should eat meat.

For the Love of Meat host Matthew Evans takes viewers on a tour of his pig farm. Ethical, or just a label?

In most cultures, including Australia, omnivory (eating a combination of meat and other foods) is the norm. Although it’s clear our preferences for different types of meat have changed over time, we are still one of the biggest meat-consuming countries in the world. But some recent statistics suggest Australians are choosing to eat less meat, particularly red meat.

One factor linked to this decline is increased concern about farm animal welfare. Our research group is interested in how consumers and producers think about farm animal welfare and how it relates to broader ideas of ethical food production.

Research tells us that people care about farm animal welfare, and a number of consumers are willing to pay more for meat that is produced in a “more humane” way. But much of this research assumes that there is a clear and shared understanding of what “good” animal welfare is.

We know a lot about how animal production scientists think about animal welfare: health, pain relief and how production animals are affected by interactions with people and their environment.

We know less about how livestock producers think about animal welfare: they generally care about the welfare of their animals because welfare is closely linked to productivity and their livelihoods, in addition to wanting to treat their animals well.

However for most consumers, price and taste are key drivers for purchases. Our ongoing research suggests consumers think about animal welfare in a much broader way than scientists and producers.

For the general public, high animal welfare standards are closely linked to ideas of food quality – taste, nutritional value and food safety. Recent research by others showed that the “humane” label alone was enough for people to rate one sample of meat as “tastier” than another, when in fact the two had been produced in exactly the same way.

For those who wish to purchase and consume meat and other animal products produced in ways that align with their values, current labelling and regulations present a minefield. “Humane” and “ethical” are very broad terms that can be interpreted in a myriad of ways, and are not explicitly regulated; various private certification regimes exist but rely on diverse measures.

Standards were recently adopted for “free-range” eggs, but several groups argue that this does not go far enough and thus does not reflect what the community expects free-range to be.

Other terms in widespread use which potentially confuse consumers include sow stall free (which refers to the housing for pregnant sows before they have piglets, not the housing system for piglets and sows together), grass-fed, grain-fed, green, and sustainable, to name just a few.

Many types of ‘ethical’ meat choices

Sustainability and the impact of meat production on the environment have also become key reasons to reduce meat consumption. We have met people who call themselves “kangatarians”; eating kangaroo meat because they feel that its consumption has less negative impact on the environment. Others only consume wild-caught meat, mainly from feral species such as deer and goat.

We have also had other participants in our research who view hunting for their own meat as “ethical” consumption in order to have direct connection with the source of their meat and to know that it has been killed “humanely”.

Even when an animal has a good life, meat-eaters obviously must accept the idea of animal death in order for them to eat meat. For some, the dissonance this creates leads them to reduce or cease eating meat. Omnivores use a number of strategies to reduce this discomfort. For some, the idea of only consuming meat from an animal that, in their view, had a good life and a good death may also be a way of reducing their own discomfort.

We need more open discussion

We encourage more open conversations about meat production and consumption, and hope that the new documentary can contribute to this.

But it is also important to recognise that most conventional producers argue that they already produce safe, nutritious and affordable meat and other animal products in humane and sustainable ways.

We need more reflection and discussion about our shared values surrounding animal consumption and production practices, and to resist simple, and potentially elitist, solutions that ignore the complexities of this debate.

For the Love of Meat begins Thursday October 20 on SBS.

Heather Bray's salary is partly funded (50%) by an Australian Research Council Linkage Project (LP130100419) which includes contributions from industry partners Coles Group Ltd, Elders Limited, Richard Gunner’s Fine Meats Pty Ltd, and the South Australian Research and Development Institute. She received scholarships from the Pig Research and Development Corporation (now Australian Pork Limited) between 1991 and 1997. The University of Adelaide is a partner in the Animal Welfare Science Centre.

Rachel A. Ankeny receives funding from the Australian Research Council for grants relating to food consumption and production, including a Linkage Project (LP130100419) which includes contributions from industry partners Coles Group Ltd, Elders Limited, Richard Gunner's Fine Meats Pty Ltd, and the South Australian Research and Development Institute.