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Study reveals ‘worrying’ 68% decline in all regions since 1985, with multiple factors to blame

Toad numbers have fallen by more than two-thirds in 30 years, according to a study using data from volunteer patrols set up to help the amphibians cross roads.

While the reckless but loveable Mr Toad in Wind In The Willows is a fan of motor cars, in real life common toads are vulnerable when crossing busy roads as they migrate to their breeding ponds.

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The theory that bike routes clog motor traffic has moved from the internet to the newspapers. It’s time to counter the myth

The headline on the front page of the Daily Mail definitely made me sit up and take notice. “Cycle lane lunacy!” it boomed, next to a photo of a cyclist on a bike lane, kept safe from a line of cars by a kerb.

My first thought was: ah, good, the Mail finally agrees it’s lunacy we have so few decent bike lanes. It seemed gratifying, if unlikely. But then I saw the smaller headline below, and my heart sank: “The new blight paralysing Britain.”

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FoI requests reveal ‘alarming discrepancies’ in the monitoring of particulate pollution outside schools by local authorities - despite government advice

Councils are failing to monitor most schools in Britain for dangerous air pollution despite government advice, freedom of information requests have revealed.

All Britain’s 433 local councils were asked by the British Lung Foundation (BLF) whether they placed pollution monitors within 10 metres of school grounds. Of the 322 which replied, only 140 said they did.

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Crook, Durham The butterflies became stupefied drinking liquid seeping from the plums, completely losing their inhibitions

For well over a week now the air under the plum tree has reeked like the dregs of a half-drunk bottle of red wine left opened for a fortnight – alcoholic and vinegary. I can not remember such a good plum crop, ever. After the pies and the jam and the ones that were frozen or given away, the fallen plums could only be left to rot, but I piled some on the bird table in the sun. Soon the red admirals arrived.

Related: The insects of doom

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Surprisingly small amounts of battery storage – located in Adelaide households – might just have helped avoid the blackout in South Australia.

Trustpower's faith in Australian renewables shaken again, as NZ utility delays demerger plans in wake of SA power system failure.

While the physical storm has passed, we're yet to emerge from the political tempest that’s followed.

The blame for SA blackout is focused on wind, but most gas capacity was unused, off-line or unusable during the blackout. And why the secrecy over which generators failed to deliver critical re-start procedures?

New CEFC-funded $100m Commonwealth Bank loan scheme to offer business cheap finance for EVs, LED lights, efficient farm machinery rooftop solar.

In September 2015, after two decades of treatment, Christine Arnott became the first Australian to undergo an experimental procedure to replace the valve in her heart that would save her life. From her diagnosis to recovery, explore the key moments that have changed her life and the technology that enabled this to happen

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The Paris climate agreement is set to enter into force next month after the European Union and Canada ratified the agreement overnight. The agreement, reached last December, required ratification by at least 55 countries accounting for 55% of global emissions to become operational.

US President Barack Obama hailed the news as perhaps “a turning point for our planet”, but also noted that it “will not solve the climate crisis” alone.

So far, 73 countries accounting for 56% of emissions have ratified the agreement. This includes the world’s two largest emitters: China and the US.

This week the European Parliament approved ratification of the agreement for the EU. The European Council has formally adopted this decision and finalised ratification.

This has put the agreement over the 55% threshold and triggered entry into force. However, by the rules of the agreement, 30 days must now elapse before the agreement becomes operational. The agreement will enter into force on November 4.

This will mean that, from that date, the agreement will be active and legally binding on those who have ratified it.

A sign of ambition?

The Paris Agreement has entered into force unexpectedly quickly. The 1997 Kyoto Protocol had identical entry-into-force conditions. Yet it took eight years for the protocol to move from adoption to entry into force. By comparison Paris looks like a ratification landslide: it will take less than one year.

Why has ratification been so quick?

The optimists would point to this as evidence of mounting international momentum. A truly global agreement and joint ratification by China and the US have reinvigorated international efforts.

India, Canada and the EU have followed shortly after the US and China. Canada also recently announced a domestic carbon tax of C$10.

Ratification is not action per se, though, and it’s difficult to directly link the domestic actions of Canada and others to Paris. The more realistic explanation for the ratification landslide is less inspiring. The Paris Agreement is so weak in terms of legal obligations that countries have little reason not to ratify it.

The legal obligations of the Paris Agreement are sparse and procedural. Countries are bound to submit increasingly stringent pledges every five years. Yet they are not obliged to achieve them.

Countries are bound to provide information about their domestic efforts and keep domestic greenhouse gas accounts. Yet most countries, including Australia, already do so.

Ratifying Paris imposes few additional actions on countries, aside from making a pledge every few years. Not ratifying would make the dissenting country a climate pariah internationally. There is little for parliaments and leaders to debate.

The speed of entry into force may simply betray how little is expected of parties to the pact. It could be a sign of weakness, rather than strength and momentum.

What about Australian ratification?

Australia has yet to ratify the Paris Agreement, but will likely do so soon.

Australian ratification of international treaties is done through the executive, not the parliament. Prime Minister Turnbull makes the final decision as to whether Australia will ratify the Paris Agreement.

Turnbull will not act alone; his decision will be advised by cabinet and the report of the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties (JSCOT). This is a cross-party committee made up of members from the Senate and the House of Representatives.

JSCOT is considering the Paris Agreement and will hold its final public briefing in Melbourne today. Shortly thereafter it will report back to parliament.

Given that Paris implies few obligations, Australia will likely ratify the agreement before the end of the year. Not doing so would unnecessarily risk Australia’s already tattered reputation on climate change.

Yet there are also fears that Australia risks embarrassment by ratifying and then missing its first pledge.

Target troubles

Currently, Australia has made an intended nationally determined contribution (INDC) to reduce emissions by 26-28% on 2005 levels by 2030. If Australia joins the Paris Agreement this would likely become our first pledge under the deal.

But existing modelling suggests we will significantly overshoot this target.

Climate Action Tracker estimates that Australia is instead on track to increase emissions above 27% on 2005 levels by 2030 (this equates to 61% above 1990 levels). They note: “Australia stands out as having the largest relative gap between current policy projections for 2030 and the INDC target.”

Modelling done by Reputex this year supports this. Reputex concludes that existing policy settings will be inadequate for meeting the 2030 targets. More aggressive measures, such as tripling the funding of the Emissions Reduction Fund, would be needed.

There is also evidence that the centrepiece of Australian climate policy – the Direct Action abatement scheme – is not effective. Recent research from Paul Burke of the Australian National University suggests that many of the projects funded by Direct Action are “anyway projects”. These are reductions that would have occurred anyway without government assistance.

Advice provided by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade suggested that Australia already has the necessary “legislation, policies and measures” in place to meet its 2030 target. But during a public briefing on the Paris Agreement last week department officials conceded that there was no government modelling to show that Australia will meet its 2030 target.

If Australia were to ratify the Paris Agreement and miss its first target then there would be few ramifications. Technically, parties to Paris are not required to meet their pledges. They only need to pursue domestic measures that aim to achieve submitted pledges.

Even Australia would clear such a low bar.

However, missing the first target would provide ammunition for both domestic and international critics. Mounting pressure from citizens and other world leaders could force the Australian government to change its climate policies. This is the logic of the pledge and review system of the Paris Agreement.

We cannot be certain of how effective this approach would be given recent Australian history. Criticism and public pressure did little to dissuade the federal government under Tony Abbott from abolishing the carbon-pricing system in 2014.

The Paris Agreement entering into force is historic, but how it will be viewed historically is unclear. Does it mark a new era of multilateral action and hope? Or will it mark the finalisation of a diplomatic smokescreen, a legal ribbon around business-as-usual climate policy?

Luke Kemp has received funding from the Australian and German governments.

The 2.3MW Mt Majura solar farm – the first asset of the Ross Garnaut-chaired $100m IIG Solar Income Fund – has been launched in ACT.

The common toad is in decline across much of the UK, and needs better protection, say conservationists.

We think battery storage with renewables is economic in states such as Queensland now. So we thought we should tell Josh Frydenberg's advisors.

What might reasonably be made of the AEMO report, at this stage, in understanding what happened?

Continuing to prop up go-nowhere coal projects distracts from efforts to invest in real solutions for the Latrobe Valley.

The media continue to blame renewable energy for South Australia's high wholesale electricity prices, but they would do well to look at how the gas generators exploit the market. And so would the regulators.

The digital revolution is great, until it's time to upgrade. E-waste image from www.shutterstock.com

A ringing phone on the peak hour train ride home may be an annoyance to be ignored, and hopefully turned to silent, but these familiar chimes are signs of a digital revolution all around us. These are the personal electronic products we engage with to help organise, connect, entertain, and inform us in an ever faster cycle.

Now they’re ubiquitous. But where do they come from, who makes them, and where do they end up when discarded? Death by Design, a documentary directed by Sue Williams screening at Environmental Film Festival Australia in Melbourne, confronts these questions.

The human cost of the digital revolution

The film begins with the development of the semiconductor industry in California, exploring the human and ecological impacts in those formative Silicon Valley years. The film shows the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition and its successful activism to drive remediation of contamination; and the personal stories of material toxicity, and associated devastation.

Throughout the film toxicity is revisited, and the film paints a fairly bleak picture of labour rights in China. We turn to Ma Jun, the 2015 Skoll Award winner (an award for social entrepreneurship) for creating a national picture of water pollution with data that is now publicly available.

Jun laments the potential human costs across China’s water infrastructure, which begs the question: why haven’t organisations expanding to these new manufacturing regions learnt the lesson from the US industry , or applied Europe’s hazardous waste standards?

What is equally troubling are issues with even stringent auditing processes. Linda Greer, a toxicologist from the Natural Resources Defence Council put it simply: “it’s all about the questions you ask”. A firm’s audit checklist may be thorough in some respects, yet miss key points in others. As such, manufacturing may be considered adequate, yet not address the pertinent problems. Jun’s work has already resulted in supply chain actions in this regard.

Who’s to blame? All of us

The film directs us to the main driver of the large industrial expansions Jun monitors, our daily consumption habits in the west. As Lancaster University professor Elizabeth Shove has portrayed so vividly, the devices of convenience and the rituals they connect to drive consumption, both conspicuous (such as a phone) and inconspicuous (such as the energy it uses).

Consumption implicates us all, and the figures the film lists are breathtaking: from 376,000 Apple Ipod sales in 2002 to 51.6 million in 2007, and 10 million Apple Iphone 5s made in a week.

Purchases are only exacerbated by constant upgrading, and consumer inability to repair or refurbish their devices as the US firm recycling firm Ifixit explains. They’ve built a business that enables consumers to circumvent “prescribed obsolescence”, to fix their own electronic products by using their own parts, tools and how-to guides.

Irish firm iameco take this even further, challenging the notion of updatable, upgradable, and reusable computers. Both business models require the breaking down of secrecy shrouding internal access to such products.

Batteries are harder to replace now and screens harder to repair, as repairs become part of manufacturer’s business models.

As Ifixit look to disrupt that disposable model for consumers, the film follows the company to China as they source their own electronic parts, and come full circle.

With such throughput of electronics, e-waste is accepted as a major and growing issue. Darrin Magee, Environment Geographer from Hobart and Williams Smith Colleges estimates that the US generates 3 million tonnes of e-waste alone, with a much smaller amount actually repurposed and recycled. Chinese volumes of e-waste and the human cost of handling are also major problems to address.

Where to from here?

Death by Design suggests that the digital revolution has rewarded us with so many benefits, something that is reasonably clear.

Certainly with all of that success, manufacturers of electronic goods must take responsibility for how products are designed for longevity by extending life cycles, and in managing the toxic issues throughout the entire supply chain.

Part of the solution could include models that build recycling into the design such as the circular economy and cradle-to-cradle models, coupled with an increase in stewardship schemes, some of which are emerging at present.

The final sequence in the film suggests that we, the people, could use our buying power or behaviour to change the system in demands for labour safety, human health and ecological preservation. This is an interesting perspective, and could be linked to new patterns of “enlightened” consumer purchasing.

I wonder though, could it be a sharing economy opportunity? What about maker culture with new democratised technologies to help build what we need to retrofit upgrades?

Others have gone further in calling for moral outrage and collective action on related issues, such as pollution leading to climate change.

In any case, Death by Design is a thought-provoking look at an industry that we interact with every time we swipe, tap or lol. As innocuous as those actions are, substantial sustainability issues remain that we need to face as a society.

Death by Design is screening at the Environmental Film Festival Australia in Melbourne on October 6.

Simon Lockrey does 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.

'Smart solar' systems with battery storage can help stabilise the grid and add to energy security, according to major US solar energy company Enphase. But there's a looming problem with so-called 'dumb solar' systems that have already been installed in Australia, which will increasingly fail or underperform over the coming decade.

Commitments from other countries push accord forward and is set to be activated on 4 November after the EU, Canada and India ratify the agreement

Barack Obama has said the Paris climate deal could prove a “turning point” in the effort to avoid dangerous global warming, after a flurry of commitments by nations pushed the agreement into force.

The climate accord is set to be activated on 4 November after the European Union, Canada, Nepal and India all formally ratified the deal. The latest ratifications mean that 73 nations accounting for nearly 57% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions are fully committed to the process, meaning the two key thresholds to the agreement have now been met.

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