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Air pollution adds to the global burden of disease.

SA energy minister Tom Koutsantonis is still weighing up how much faith he can put into battery storage to manage the grid.

Adani Power's latest big loss underlines the fact that its Carmichael coal project makes no sense. One myth is that the local economy would be devastated if the mine doesn't go ahead. But it's simply not true, given the huge pipeline of solar, wind, storage, biofuel and battery manufacturing projects.

Studying the catastrophe that has been Australian climate and energy policy these past 30 years is a thoroughly depressing business. When you read great work by Guy Pearse, Clive Hamilton, Maria Taylor and Phillip Chubb, among others, you find yourself asking “why”?

Why were we so stupid, so unrelentingly shortsighted? Why did the revelation in 2004 that John Howard had called a meeting of big business to help him slow the growth of renewables elicit no more than a shrug? Why did policy-makers attack renewable energy so unrelentingly?

About now, readers will be rolling their eyes and saying either “follow the money, stupid!” or “they are blinded by their marketophilia”. Fair enough, and they have a point.

My recently published paper, titled “Wind beneath their contempt: why Australian policymakers oppose solar and wind energy” outlines the hostility to renewables from people like former treasurer Joe Hockey, who found the wind turbines around Canberra’s Lake George “utterly offensive”, and former prime minister Tony Abbott, who funded studies into the “potential health impacts” of wind farms.

It also deals with the policy-go-round that led to a drop in investment in renewables.

In a search for explanations for this, my paper looks at what we academics call “material factors”, such as party donations, post-career jobs, blame avoidance, diminished government capacity to act, and active disinformation by incumbents.

I then turn to ideological factors such as neoliberalism, the “growth at all costs” mindset, and of course climate denial.

Where it gets fun – and possibly controversial – is when I turn to psychological explanations such as what the sociologist Karl Mannheim called “the problem of generations”. This is best explained by a Douglas Adams quote:

Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works. Anything that’s invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it. Anything invented after you’re thirty-five is against the natural order of things.

Over the past 50 years, white heterosexual middle-class males with engineering backgrounds have felt this pattern particularly keenly, as their world has shifted and changed around them. To quote my own research paper:

This loss of the promise of control over nature occurred – by coincidence – at the same time that the British empire disintegrated, and the US empire met its match in the jungles of Vietnam, and while feminism, civil rights and gay rights all sprang up. What scholars of the Anthropocene have come to call the “Great Acceleration” from the 1950s, was followed by the great (and still incomplete) democratisation of the 1960s and 1970s.

The rising popularity of solar panels represents a similar pattern of democratisation, and associated loss of control for those with a vested interest in conventional power generation, which would presumably be particularly threatening to those attracted to status, power and hierarchy.

Consider the cringe

Here are a couple more ideas and explanations that didn’t make the cut when I wrote the research paper. First up is the “biological cringe” – analogous to the “cultural cringe”, the self-loathing Australian assumption that all things British were better.

In Ecology and Empire: Environmental History of Settler Societies, the historian Tom Griffiths notes that:

Acclimatization societies systematically imported species that were regarded as useful, aesthetic or respectably wild to fill the perceived gaps in primitive Australian nature. This “biological cringe” was remarkably persistent and even informed twentieth-century preservation movements, when people came to feel that the remnants of the relic fauna, flora and peoples, genetically unable to fend for themselves, should be “saved”.

Second, and related, is the contempt and hatred that settler colonialists can feel towards wilderness, which in turn morphs into the ideology that there should be no limits on expansion and growth.

This means that people who speak of limits are inevitably attacked. One good example is Thomas Griffith Taylor (1880-1963), an Australian scientist who fell foul of the boosters who believed the country could and should support up to 500 million people.

Having seen his textbook banned in Western Australia for using the words “arid” and “desert”, Taylor set sail for the United States. At his farewell banquet at University of Sydney, he reinterpreted its motto Sidere mens eadem mutate (“The same spirit under a different sky”), as “Though the heavens fall I am of the same mind as my great-great-grandfather!”

I am anticipating that at least four groups will object to my speculations: (vulgar) Marxists, for whom everything is about profits; positivists and Popperians, who will mutter about a lack of disprovability; deniers of climate science, who often don’t like being described as such; and finally, those who argue that renewables cannot possibly provide the energy return on investment required to run a modern industrial economy (who may or may not be right – we are about to find out).

Reader, of whatever category, what do you think?

Australian consortium ready to choose site in Townsville for first Australian battery "gigafactory", signs deal to do same in New York.

The Meadows, Chester The brightest colours drew my novice eyes: a vivid yellow ladybird, a tiny blue weevil and the polished emerald of a dock beetle

A gentle breeze shimmers through the grass and the babble of the breeding season surrounds me. This patch of water meadows, just across the river Dee from the city centre, invites us to take things easy. But last time I visited I was carrying a petrol-powered leaf blower, helping Julie Rose of the Friends of the Meadows users group and entomologist Clive Washington with their beetle biodiversity survey.

Just off the path from Bottom Lane, Clive thrashed a blossoming hawthorn with a big stick, holding a white tray underneath to catch his quarry. A hand lens revealed common leaf weevils, Phyllobius pyri, rose-gold and speckled with pollen. A bronze bead was identified as Anaspis maculata, a tumbling flower beetle; a small longhorn beetle, Grammoptera ruficornis, stood out with its statement headwear and pewter sheen.

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Tesla has added Watergardens Town Centre to its network of fast charging stations.

There is a pair of jeans for every occasion. Krisana Antharith/Shutterstock

Denim jeans – whether ripped, straight, flared, vintage or raw – are one of the world’s most-loved garments. But from fibre to wardrobe, they have a considerable ecological footprint.

Given the diversity of cotton growing enterprises and clothing producers around the world, tracking the environmental impact of a pair of cotton jeans is no simple feat.

But as a denim-wearer you can make more sustainable choices by buying responsibly, extending your jeans’ life with gentle washing and choosing to repair, not replace.

In this guide we’re looking at the key stages of jeans’ life cycle: cotton cultivation; spinning and dyeing; manufacturing, distribution and retailing; and what happens after you get them home.

Cotton cultivation

Let’s begin with the cotton crop, in which water and pesticide use are prominent environmental issues.

Cotton is a thirsty crop, using 3% of the world’s irrigation water on 2.2% of global arable land. However, better management can reduce water wastage and improve efficiency.

Like humans, insects and bugs are attracted to the pillowy white fluff that is actually the fruit of cotton. Traditional cotton farming is chemically intensive, but genetically altered cotton varieties and innovations in integrated pest management have almost halved insecticide use (from 25% to 14% of global insecticide sales) since the 1990s.

Organic cotton crops use no synthetic chemicals, but yields are typically lower than that of conventional cotton, and organic cotton represents less than 1% of the 25 million tonnes of cotton grown globally. Its water consumption is similar to non-organic cotton.

However, organic producers in developing countries can charge a premium for their crops and aren’t reliant on synthetic insecticides and pesticides. If you want to buy organic cotton jeans, you can check for brands accredited by the Global Organic Textile Standard.

To improve cotton cultivation standards globally, the not-for-profit organisation Better Cotton Initiative was established in 2005 to promote more sustainable cotton growing, with better practices across water use, land and pest management and social indicators. Major fashion retailers like Levis Strauss & Co., H&M, The Gap, Kathmandu and Burberry are focusing on sourcing Better Cotton, organic, or recycled cotton for their clothing.

Spinning, dyeing and manufacturing

The process of spinning fibre into yarn, yarn into cloth, and manufacturing cloth into clothes represents some 70% of the total energy consumption of creating a pair of jeans.

The iconic indigo colour and the broken-in look of denim are the result of chemically intensive and high water use treatment processes that can take a toll on workers’ health and safety and impact the environment.

Leading denim brands are actively promoting techniques that limit the chemical and water intensity of wet processing, like enzyme finishing, laser etching and ozone treatments.

Initiatives such as Zero Discharge of Hazardous Waste work across the apparel supply chain to tackle this problem. You can check their website for a list of brands that have committed to better practises.

Denim manufacturing is chemically intensive. Moreno Soppelsa/Shutterstock Wearing jeans

It may come as a surprise, but a large part of the environmental impact of a pair of jeans occurs after you buy them – how you launder and care for your jeans, and for how long, can be crucial in minimising denim’s ecological footprint. Throw-away fashion is a huge problem: a survey of 1,500 British women found the majority of garments (not just jeans) are worn as few as seven times.

You can minimise your jeans’ footprint simply by washing and drying them less often. We often launder far more often than needed, and overwashing may be more from habit than actual dirtiness of garments. In a 2012 study, participants wore the same pair of jeans unwashed for three months with no ill effects. Any smells or stains were simply managed through airing or spot cleaning.

Jeans have a patina of use that factories work hard to simulate – but you can develop your own patina through wear over a lifetime.

Forward-looking denim brands are embracing longevity, with Nudie jeans offering repair services, and Levi Strauss promoting durability and a personal connection to one’s clothing.

New business models promote a circular approach to consumption: you can rent your jeans from Mud denim, and at the end of your jeans’ life, Mud will collect them for reuse or recycling.

Easy steps for buying greener

If buying new, purchase from retailers actively sourcing responsibly grown cotton. Check for standards and certifications like Better Cotton or the Global Organic Textile Standard.

Look for retailers that promote environmentally friendly processes, such as enzyme-washed denim or waterless denim. You can dig into your denim retailer’s sustainability statements on their website to see if they have signed up to initiatives to tackle hazardous chemicals, such as Zero Discharge of Hazardous Waste, or if they have their own scheme in place.

Remember that the most sustainable pair of jeans is the pair you already own. Care for your jeans by laundering them lightly and less often, using a cold wash cycle and line drying. Freshen them up between washes by hanging them in the sun or in a steamy bathroom.

Most importantly, extend their life by repairing them if damaged, and give them that patina of use through wear.

Alice Payne receives research funding from the Cotton Research Development Corporation (CRDC).

Susannah Kate Devitt receives research funding from the Cotton Research Development Corporation (CRDC).

Renewable energy futures prices are in free-fall, reflecting the general view that the 2020 target can be met, and may even be exceeded.

Carnegie Clean Enegry completes design of a wave energy integrated hybrid power station for the Mauritian island of Rodrigues.

Solar PV production in Germany averaged at greater than 30GW for an hour on Sunday, amounting to 42% of total power production at that time.

Three in four Australians understand that climate warming poses a “catastrophic risk,” even as the Australian government turns a blind eye.

Terry Selwood was hurt when 2.7-metre shark, which weighed 200kg, leapt into his boat near Evans Head

A fisherman who watched a 2.7-metre great white shark land in his boat has downplayed the experience, calling it “just a mundane thing”.

Terry Selwood, 73, was caught by surprise while fishing off Evans Head, on the north coast of New South Wales, on Saturday afternoon when the shark launched itself into his 4.5-metre boat.

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Surveys taken throughout 2016 show escalating impact from north to south, with 70% of shallow water corals dead north of Port Douglas

Coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef last year was even worse than expected, while the full impact of the most recent event is yet to be determined.

Queensland government officials say aerial and in-water surveys taken throughout 2016 had confirmed an escalating impact from north to south.

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This week meet hypnotist and water diviner Ziggy Sieczka; horses and riders bond in a mustering camp; we take a carriage ride around Clermont; and a former Melbourne teacher swaps cold Victoria for life in the Northern Territory.

UK broke a solar power record for the second time this month last Friday.

Protect Group is the first severance scheme to be certified carbon neutral against the National Carbon Offset Standard for its operations commencing July 2016.

Protect Group is the first severance scheme to be certified carbon neutral against the National Carbon Offset Standard for its operations commencing July 2016.

Protect Group is the first severance scheme to be certified carbon neutral against the National Carbon Offset Standard for its operations commencing July 2016.

Protect Group is the first severance scheme to be certified carbon neutral against the National Carbon Offset Standard for its operations commencing July 2016.