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Attribution studies are letting researchers respond quickly to questions about human influence – before the news cycle turns elsewhere

Is it still true to say you can’t point to any single extreme weather event and claim you can’t link it to human-caused climate change?

Plenty of people seem to think this is still the case. But a rapidly evolving field of climate science suggests that it’s not.

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Poll findings released as prominent Australians call on big four to withdraw backing for fossil fuel industry

About half of all Australians would be likely to switch banks if they found out their bank was lending money to projects that contribute to climate change, according to polling commissioned by the financial activist group Market Forces.

The findings came as more than 100 prominent Australian individuals and organisations signed a letter demanding that the big four banks stop supporting projects that expand the fossil fuel industry. Among the signatories are JM Coetzee, Charlotte Wood, James Bradley, Missy Higgins, Peter Singer and Jack Mundey, as well as unions, religious orders and conservation groups.

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Over the last year wholesale electricity prices have been falling just about everywhere across the developed world except here in Australia, where they are skyrocketing.

Perth is not known as a model for suburbia and its suburban condition is similar to that of developed cities the world over. However, it does stand out in one respect: it sits in an exceptionally biodiverse natural setting. A strong, informed vision for this setting’s relationship with the city could help Perth become an exemplar for similarly positioned metropolises everywhere.

The greater Perth region has been designated the Southwest Australia Ecoregion (SWAE). This is one of only 35 “biodiversity hotspots” in the world.

Reconciling future growth with biodiversity is a key issue for urban design and planning this century. Indeed, if current trends continue, global urban land cover will increase by 1.2 million square kilometres (equivalent to half the area of Western Australia) by 2030. Much of this will happen in biodiversity hotspots.

This is important because it is estimated we will lose nearly half of all terrestrial species if we fail to protect the hotspots. We will also lose the ecosystem services upon which human populations ultimately depend.

“Ecosystem services” may sound like abstract jargon, but it’s actually a term used to describe the services nature provides – such as clean air, water and food, and heatwave and flood mitigation. Without these, human life would be extremely unpleasant, if not unviable.

Perth has a reputedly strong planning system and is comparatively wealthy. If it can’t control its city form to protect biodiversity – compact cities generally being recognised as the best model for protecting land for conservation – then city administrators elsewhere, particularly in the developing world, are likely to struggle.

Misreading the land

The current treatment of the Australian environment has its roots in the European annexation of Australia, which has been characterised by catastrophic misreadings of the land. Governor James Stirling, who was singularly responsible for the European annexation of Perth, was the kind of man who saw what he wanted to see rather than what was there. In The Origins of Australia’s Capital Cities, Geoffrey Bolton writes:

…arriving at the end of … an uncommonly cool, moist summer, [Stirling was] misled by the tallness of the northern jarrah forest and the quality of the alluvial soils close to the river into believing that the coastal plain would offer fertile farming and grazing. It was, Stirling wrote, equal to the plains of Lombardy; and he persuaded himself that the cool easterly land breeze of these early autumn nights must originate from a range of snowy mountains.

Vegetation of Southwest Australia Ecoregion near current-day Perth at the time of European settlement. Based on statewide mapping by John Beard between 1964 and 1981. DPAW

The results of such misinterpretations of the land were generally less poetic. Stirling sited the settlement of Perth on a narrow, constrained strip of land between swamps to the north and marshy river edges to the south. These low-lying areas fuelled plagues of mosquitos and, once polluted, deadly typhoid outbreaks.

In time, due to a lingering discomfort with Perth’s “unsanitary” wetlands, more than 200,000 hectares – an area equivalent to 500 Kings Parks – were drained on the Swan Coastal Plain. These biologically productive areas directly or indirectly support most of the coastal plain’s wildlife, so the effects on biodiversity have been catastrophic.

Furthermore, a perception of the Banksia woodland and coastal heath on Perth’s fringes as unattractive and useless has seen much of it cleared for the expansion of the city. Between 2001 and 2009, suburban growth consumed an annual average of 851ha of highly biodiverse land on the urban fringe.

The lesson from this experience is that any future growth in a biodiversity hotspot, or indeed elsewhere, has to be founded on the understanding that we cannot continue to bend nature to our will. We must learn how to work with it.

Within this humbling process, we need to recognise that working with the land is not an entirely pure or noble act; rather, it is imperative for humanity’s survival. As species and ecosystems become threatened and vanish, so too do the ecosystem services that support human wellbeing.

Perth’s Green Growth Plan

The release of the state government’s long-anticipated Perth and Peel Green Growth Plan for 3.5 million may herald a shift in the relationship between the city and the biodiversity hotspot. The plan encapsulates two broad goals:

• to protect fringe bushland, rivers, wetlands and wildlife in an impressive 170,000 hectares of new and expanded reserves on Perth’s fringe

• to cut red tape by securing upfront Commonwealth environmental approvals for outer suburban development.

While ostensibly positive achievements, a question remains as to the implications of clearing a further 45,000ha (3% of the Swan Coastal Plain) of remnant bushland which is not protected by the conservation reserves.

Furthermore, the typically disconnected conservation reserves proposed in the Green Growth Plan lack overall legibility. This stymies the public’s ability to conceptualise the city’s edge, which leads them to care about it (like London’s greenbelt, for instance).

Finally, a question remains about how a plan that places restrictions on outer suburban development will accommodate the powerful local land development industry over time. This is a concern given the frequent “urban break-outs” – where urban development occurs outside nominated growth areas – between 1970 and 2005.

In 2003, the ABC asked revered Western Australian landscape architect Marion Blackwell, “Are we at home now in the land we live in?” She replied, “No, we’re not. We don’t know enough about it, and not enough people know anything about it.”

We still have work to do on our engagement with biodiversity in Western Australia, and Perth specifically, before we can become a model for future cities.

The Conversation is co-publishing articles with Future West (Australian Urbanism), produced by the University of Western Australia’s Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Visual Arts. These articles look towards the future of urbanism, taking Perth and Western Australia as its reference point. You can read other articles here.

The Australian Urban Design Research Centre, whom employs Julian Bolleter, receives funding from the Western Australian Planning Commission for undertaking specific research projects however these projects are not directly related to the content of this article.

Report comparing past mass extinction events warns that hunting and killing of ocean’s largest species will disrupt ecosystems for millions of years

Humanity is driving an unprecedented extinction of sealife unlike any in the fossil record, hunting and killing larger species in a way that will disrupt ocean ecosystems for millions of years, scientists have found.

A new analysis of the five mass extinction events millions of years ago discovered there was either no pattern to which marine species were lost, or smaller species were the ones that disappeared.

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A crow that survives only in captivity has been found to adapt and use tools to find food, according to scientists.

A crow that survives only in captivity has been found to adapt and use tools to find food, according to scientists.

Astronomers have discovered signs of a baby planet developing around another star.

Some 15,000 people responded to the mayor’s air quality consultation, with 79% backing plans to bring forward restrictions on polluting vehicles, reports BusinessGreen

Londoners are backing Sadiq Khan’s plans to crack down on air pollution in the capital, with more than 70 per cent of residents supporting plans to bring forward measures to restrict polluting vehicles in the city, according to the results of the Mayor’s air quality consultation.

Some 15,000 people responded to the Mayor’s office air quality consultation this summer - the highest number of responses to a City Hall consultation ever. Nearly 80 per cent of respondents said they supported Khan’s plans to bring forward the introduction of the Ultra Low Emission Zone - currently due to enter force in 2020 - to 2019, while 71 per cent said the zone should be expanded to encompass the north and south circular.

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The health of the countryside varies depending on how it is measured.

Brexit is an opportunity to refine legislation to match UK’s needs, says conservationist, speaking at the launch of a major report that shows Britain is one of the world’s most ‘nature-depleted countries’

David Attenborough has urged the government to use Brexit to better protect the UK’s nature and wildlife.

“Like it or not Brexit has happened. All agriculture and environment treaties for nature and wildlife will have to be rethought. It’s a great opportunity to refine the legislation to match our part of the world,” he told conservationists at the launch of the 2016 State of Nature report.

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Life-sustaining sea ice needed for hunting, resting and breeding is declining in all 19 regions of the Arctic inhabited by the species

Polar bears are losing life-sustaining sea ice crucial for hunting, resting and breeding in all 19 regions of the Arctic they inhabit, a study warned on Wednesday.

As climate change pushes up Arctic temperatures, ice is melting earlier in spring and refreezing later in autumn, a team of researchers reported in the Cryosphere, a journal of the European Geosciences Union.

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The European Space Agency has released details of the position and brightness of more than a billion stars.

An anonymous note chiding a retired funeral director for hanging her frillies outside has gone viral. But it’s just the latest incident in the global war on drying

In the US, they would call them “freedom panties”, which sounds terrible. In the tiny Devon village of Stokeinteignhead, they are known as Rozamund Perrin’s controversial smalls. The retired funeral director is at odds with her prudish neighbours in the latest skirmish in a global war on washing lines.

“It is totally inappropiate [sic] for this type of garment to be displayed opposite the village primary school,” reads an anonymous note posted through Perrin’s letterbox with the offending knickers. “There are member [sic] of this community that would welcome a halting of this.”

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Fifteen stunning images from the Royal Photographic Society's International Images for Science competition

The opening of data sources in agricultural research is needed to deliver the global goal of delivering zero hunger by 2030, say campaigners.

All of the other 51 countries voted in favour of an international ban, including big mining nations China and Russia

Norway and Turkey were the only two of 53 countries to vote against an international ban on the dumping of mining waste at sea, at a major conservation summit in Hawaii last week.

Even big mining nations including China and Russia voted in favour of the resolution at the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) congress.

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The fossil fuel industry is dictating Republican Party actions on climate change in attorney generals offices, Congress, and for its presidential nominee

The GOP has become the Grand Oil Party. The fossil fuel industry has now managed to dictate Republican Party actions on climate change in attorney generals offices, Congress, and for the party’s presidential nominee.

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Satellite data shows ice was close to last year’s record low confirming a long-term downward trend towards ice-free Arctic summers

Arctic sea ice cover could be confirmed within days as the second lowest ever recorded, the latest data suggests.

According to the US national snow and ice data centre (NSIDC) the ice which forms and disperses annually has been close to its minimum extent for the year for several days and has begun to grow again as autumn sets in.

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Europe's Gaia space telescope releases its first batch of data as it builds the most precise map ever made of the night sky.