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Greens motion also calls on government to rule out publicly funding any of the mine’s associated infrastructure

The government is under increasing pressure to rule out public funding for Adani’s Carmichael coalmine, after the Senate passed a Greens motion calling on the Coalition to rule out financing the mine or any associated infrastructure.

The government did not oppose the motion, so it was carried without a formal count on Thursday.

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Across Africa, poaching is on the rise. Progress is being made here and there, but the battle to save the largest animals on the Earth is far from being won

In the Samburu National Reserve in northern Kenya, when the fierce heat of the sun has softened into a gentle evening glow, David Daballen and I climb into a jeep to find some elephants.

As we drive through the savannah, Daballen, a conservationist at Save the Elephants, points out family groups and individuals within them. “These are the Butterflies, this group is Storms, here are the Spices,” he says. We have been looking out for Cinnamon, the Spices’ matriarch, and suddenly there she is: around 50 years old, huge and tuskless, having been born without any precious ivory. Close to her is Habiba, who was orphaned along with seven siblings when poachers killed their mother in 2011. The orphans were adopted by Cinnamon and the rest of the Spices.

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‘Ethical ivory’ from the extinct animal is in high demand as elephants fall out of favour in China. Photographer Amos Chapple followed the tuskers in the Russian wilderness searching to uncover the lucrative remains

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A collection of zoological wonders from August 2016, featuring a head-bopping sea-lion called Ronan, long-lived sharks and lobsters that bag up their poo

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Majority of the Salvation Army’s sites, third of Quaker meeting houses, and 2,000 churches belonging to 16 Catholic dioceses switch to renewable energy

More than 3,500 churches across Britain have moved their electricity supply to renewables, or are planning to do so, according to data released on Thursday.

Those switching away from fossil fuels include the majority of the Salvation Army’s sites, about a third of Quaker meeting houses, and about 2,000 churches belonging to 16 Catholic dioceses which are running entirely on renewable energy.

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Overfishing can teach us valuable lessons about ecosystem resilience. Andreas Altenberger/Shutterstock.com

As we head into the Anthropocene epoch, the era in which humankind has become the prevailing influence on our planet, we often stand accused of inadvertently running “global experiments” through our effects on wildlife, food chains, landscapes and the climate.

But what if these experiments are exactly the kind of science we need?

Of course, we’re not suggesting we deliberately trash the planet in the name of science. But if these phenomena are happening anyway, the least we can do is learn something along the way. That’s what experiments are for, right?

With science budgets shrivelling, the apparent alternative is to channel funding into ever smaller, shorter and cheaper experiments. But good luck recreating the complex tapestry of life in a coral reef, say, when all you have is a 10-cubic-metre tank.

Our research, published in the journal Ecosystems, argues that one of the only feasible solutions to the current intellectual and financial crisis lies in “large-scale, unreplicated natural experiments”, or LUNEs. These “off-the-shelf”, expansive experiments have inadvertently been created by humanity and nature.

Think tsunamis, deep earthquakes, oil spills, shark finning, alien invasions (yellow crazy ants, not Martians), and the construction of the Suez Canal.

Together, these rare but powerful manipulations of the environment can be tapped by scientists to test important hypotheses about how the world works.

Letting nature and human activity do the “dirty work” when it comes to experimental design has its advantages: it’s cheap, it’s realistic, and in many cases it’s the only ethical or logical way to study a particular question. In cases of human activity, it also allows us to understand the ecosystem response to these “interventions”.

There is also a growing consensus that no matter how many small-scale or theoretical studies we churn out, things often play out alarmingly differently when we examine ecological processes at large scales.

For example, you might be forgiven for thinking that an invasion of poisonous cane toads would be bad news for the snakes that eat them (and that’s what most studies have suggested). But a recent large-scale analysis found not just that many snake species were unperturbed by invasive toads, but that some lucky groups even increased in abundance.

Why else should we give LUNEs a chance? For statistical reasons, they are a particularly powerful tool when they operate across an ecological gradient, potentially allowing us, for example, to identify “tipping points” within ecosystem function.

In addition, gradual accumulations of LUNEs can ultimately power meta-analyses that can be used to draft robust “rules of thumb” about how ecological processes work.

For example, you might think that marine protected areas (MPAs) are a no-brainer when it comes to generating environmental and economic benefits. But this has been surprisingly difficult to prove scientifically. However, a 2014 meta-analysis of 87 MPAs showed conclusively that they help fish grow bigger and more abundant, particularly when these marine reserves are old, large, well-enforced, and have no-take fishing rules.

Deliberate oil spills?!

But LUNEs constitute a Faustian bargain, damaging the natural world in return for more knowledge. That also means they’re generally impossible to replicate, because it’s hard to run the experiment for a second time, even if you were mad enough to want to.

The US government is unlikely to green-light a second Deepwater Horizon oil spill, earthquakes are unpredictable and different each time, and we’re (hopefully) unlikely to experience another Big Bang any time in our near future.

An important question LUNEs raise is whether the conventional scientific need for experimental replication surpasses the urgent need to understand humanity’s effects on the planet.

We argue that the “conceptual” replications LUNEs offer are far more valuable than exact, controlled scientific replications, which when carried out on small scales can be highly misleading anyway.

Here’s an example. Water quality declined in many North American rivers and lakes in the 1960s, turning them green with nutrient-driven algal blooms. Small-scale experiments pointed the finger at nitrogen and carbon, but when researcher David Schindler began deliberately injecting whole lakes in western Ontario with different nutrients, he realised that phosphorus was the crucial factor.

His research didn’t use traditional scientific replication. But the results were eventually enough to persuade the Canadian government and several US states to ban phosphorus, which is now recognised as the major culprit.

In other cases, LUNEs have not overturned scientific consensus, but have proved crucial in highlighting the seriousness of the issues. There was 20 years' worth of evidence from small-scale lab experiments and modelling studies about the dangers of chlorofluorocarbons used as refrigerants and aerosol propellants. But the world only moved to ban them after the discovery that these chemicals had punched a large hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica.

Together, these examples suggest that LUNEs and other large-scale studies can play a crucial role in galvanising the policy changes that avert environmental crises.

Homo sapiens derives from the Latin sapientia, meaning “wisdom”. But our ongoing failure to use our planet’s resources sustainably suggests that we are still a long way from living up to our name.

Fast-tracking LUNES and other large-scale studies, and placing value on their findings, may help us develop the far-sightedness we’ll need to survive the Anthropocene epoch.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.

Alinta Energy says distributed geothermal could provide heating and cooling needs for new housing estates, and combined with solar need not be connected to grid.

MPs warn that the uptake of ultra-low emission vehicles is too low to meet national climate change targets

The government is falling behind on its commitments to switch a proportion of Britain’s car fleet to electric vehicles, an influential committee of MPs said on Thursday.

Take-up of electric vehicles has been slower than hoped in the UK, but the technology is essential to reducing greenhouse gas emissions from transport, and tackling the air pollution produced by the increased number of diesel cars on the road.

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There’s plenty of early adopters out there who will buy battery storage regardless of the return on investment, because early adopters like the technology and the independence it offers.

Online energy retailer Click Energy has launched an electricity plan targeting electric vehicle owners, offering lower electricity rates or higher solar feed-in tariff.

A reconstituted Climate Change Authority has delivered its long-awaited, long-delayed report on Australia's climate policy options. And it looks remarkably like something that the Coalition could have written itself, and is too little, too late.

Australia the only country to receive a rating of ‘very poor’ in a majority of categories in Climate Transparency scorecard

Australia is the worst country among the G20 when it comes to action on climate change, according to a comprehensive assessment before the G20 summit in China.

Under China’s leadership, this weekend’s G20 in the eastern city of Hangzhou has had a strong focus on climate-related issues.

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Hill End, Weardale Turf starved of nutrients creates a doll’s house lawn, a tapestry of fescues and eyebright

From the fell where we stood, knee-deep in purple heather, the old limestone quarry in the valley seemed just another scar on the landscape, a great bite of mineral wealth torn from the hillside leaving a bare cliff face, rushy pools and broken rock.

It was only when we got close, really close, that it revealed another legacy, one that lasts for just a few weeks in late summer.

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Gutted by Malclm Turnbull, its latest report a cop out, the Climate Change Authority has become yet another impediment to climate action in Australia.

Defeat of remaining legal challenge to Carmichael coal mine means it is finally time for Adani to put its money where its mouth has been.

ACT names 8 winners of $2m funding to roll-out 2MW solar-integrated battery storage across 600+ homes and businesses.

A startling number of solar households think the best use of their investment is to feed power to the grid. Education is needed.

Coalition and Labor fudge on commitments to ARENA, with vote on funding cuts looming next week.

Slash subsidies or back 100% renewables? Australia's Coalition parties at odds over whether to support or oppose wind and solar.

Free movement between the US and Mexico - the hottest of topics in the 2016 US presidential campaign - is not just a human issue.