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Will 2018 be the year that mainstream media is not duped by professional spin doctors and fake experts paid to downplay and deny the realities of climate change?

SunWiz data – and eye-watering charts – reveal 2017 was a "magnificent record setting year" for solar installs, with 50% more rooftop PV capacity added across the country than in 2016, and some astonishing growth in the commercial solar sector.

The Australian Government has announced the Geological and Bioregional Assessment of the Isa Superbasin in Queensland.

New research shows nearly two-thirds of India’s coal power generation is no longer price competitive with new solar and wind.

On Friday, a 28-page text covering the main policy fields cursorily was published after a previous draft had been leaked. For energy policy, the changes are encouraging, but a lot of question marks remain.

The Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder has sold 6.7 gigalitres of Commonwealth environmental water allocations for a return of $2.878 million that will be used to improve the environment of the Murray Darling Basin.

The Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder has sold 6.7 gigalitres of Commonwealth environmental water allocations for a return of $2.878 million that will be used to improve the environment of the Murray Darling Basin.

A mass die-off of antelopes in Kazakhstan was triggered by environmental factors, scientists believe.

Renewable energy investment touched a new high in Australia last year as spending on new power plants more than doubled, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

Australia's scorching summers aren't just inconvenient: heatwaves are deadly. Yet new research has found many vulnerable people don't have a plan for extreme heat. Andrew Gissing, Adjunct Fellow, Macquarie University Lucinda Coates, Risk Scientist, Risk Frontiers Natural Hazards Research Centre, Macquarie University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Scientists capture "incredible" images of instructions contained in DNA being read

A group of divers has connected two underwater caverns in eastern Mexico to reveal what is believed to be the world's largest flooded cave, a discovery that could shed light on the ancient Maya civilisation. The Yucatán peninsula is studded with monumental relics of the Maya people, whose cities drew on an extensive network of sinkholes known as cenotes. Some cenotes had religious significance to the Maya, whose descendants remain in the region

• World's longest underwater cave system discovered in Mexico by divers

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Finnish start-up ICEYE releases a "first light" picture from its novel radar satellite.

Wrap, the agency responsible for tackling waste, blames government cuts for the redundancies, that come just a week after the prime minister’s pledge

Just one week after Theresa May and Michael Gove promised to eradicate the scourge of plastic waste, government budget cuts have forced a key agency charged with tackling the problem to make more than a tenth of its staff redundant, a move campaigners said could sabotage progress.

About 25 people are losing their jobs at the Waste and Resources Action Programme (Wrap), the body’s chief executive confirmed on Wednesday.

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5,000 hectares of cotton thought to be affected by off-target spray drift, says Bernie Bierhoff of Walgett Cotton Growers’ Association

On Christmas Day farmers around Walgett in north-west New South Wales noticed their infant cotton plants had begun to wither. Leaves began to curl and die, killing some plants and stressing others.

Within days, it was clear Walgett was facing a serious incident that had affected nearly 6,000 hectares (60 sq km) of cotton farms reaching as far as Burren Junction, and Rowena.

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A monkey from Ethiopia with a distinctive "handlebar moustache" has been identified as a distinct species.

We asked you to recommend the best ways to reduce your plastic consumption and avoid excess waste. Here’s what some of you said

For 70 years, the world’s plastic usage has grown inexorably from humble beginnings to a position where humanity now produce roughly its own weight in plastic every year.

But is there a turning point in view? Guardian revelations about the scale of plastic waste and the threat it poses has finally prompted the authorities to take the issue seriously. Michael Gove is considering a deposit return scheme for plastic bottles, Sadiq Khan is looking at new water fountains to contain the plastic proliferation, and now Theresa May has set out her own plastic-free stall.

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Exclusive: Guardian investigation unwraps truth about supermarket plastics after big brands refuse to divulge packaging secrets

• Read more: The plastic-free stores showing the big brands how to do it

Britain’s leading supermarkets create more than 800,000 tonnes of plastic packaging waste every year, according to an investigation by the Guardian which reveals how top chains keep details of their plastic footprint secret.

As concern over the scale of unnecessary plastic waste grows, the Guardian asked Britain’s eight leading supermarkets to explain how much plastic packaging they sell to consumers and whether they would commit to a plastic-free aisle in their stores.

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Effective Space says it will launch "space drones" to prolong the life of telecommunications satellites in orbit.

Conservationists say government scheme, aimed at placating grouse moor land owners who object to the birds breeding on their land, will not boost numbers of the endangered birds

Controversial government plans to remove chicks from the nests of one of England’s rarest birds and rear them in captivity have been criticised as “nonsense” by conservationists.

Hen harrier chicks or eggs will be removed from nests in northern England and hand-reared in captivity before being reintroduced into the wild, under the terms of a two-year licence issued by Natural England, the government’s conservation watchdog.

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