Feed aggregator

Researchers are using powerful X-rays to look inside cannonballs found on the famous Tudor ship, the Mary Rose.

Oz Minerals to build solar and storage plant at flagship mine in first move to use renewables to supply big mining projects. It also signs a deal to share costs of new transmission line with developer of solar tower plant.

JinkoSolar has been awarded the “Top Brand PV” seal in the Australian, German, and Austrian markets by EuPD Research, Europe’s leading sustainability research firm.

From boar hair toothbrushes to beeswax food wrap, here's how you can dump the disposable plastics.

California notches new solar records for peak production and supply, boosted by a couple of mild and sunny early Spring days.

A new study claims the remains discovered on a Pacific island are a 99% match with the explorer.

Harold Forbes says the principle of polluter pays is rarely implemented; Jeremy Tomkinson calls for clear policy on lowering petrol emissions; Chris Tidmarsh laments the sparsity of electric-car charging points in Southwark and Lambeth

Your article on carbon dioxide emissions from new vehicles (Fall in CO2 output from new cars goes into reverse, 27 February) makes no mention of the eight-year freeze on fuel duty, which has contributed to UK fuel prices being 4% below their 2000 levels in real terms and 21% below the 2013 peak. The relative price of things is an enormously powerful driver of human choices and behaviour.

Dumping the economic assumption that nature is a limitless source of materials and services that can be considered to come for free would be the single biggest leap that humanity could make in securing its future. At present we have few monetary incentives to avoid excess greenhouse gas emissions, single-use plastics or even excess animal manure. In fact, the economy encourages us believe it is “cheaper” to do such things.

Continue reading...

Two Emperor penguins stumbled across a camera that was left by an Australian Antarctic explorer.

Northern Territory government-approved land clearing likely to cause up to 3 megatonnes of C02-equivalent greenhouse gas emissions

A landmark court case in the Northern Territory is set to consider a challenge to a massive land-clearing approval based on its impacts on climate change.

The case, brought by the Environment Centre NT, is believed to be the first of its kind in Australia, using the consideration of greenhouse gas emissions from clearing as a lever to seek to have an approval overturned.

Continue reading...

South Yorkshire rejection of Ineos drill application adds to refusals, which include those from Tory councils

The application by Ineos to explore for shale gas in South Yorkshire has been rejected by local councillors, bringing the number of planning decisions that have gone against fracking companies this year to seven.

Rotherham metropolitan borough turned the application by the UK-based petrochemicals firm to drill a well near the village of Woodsetts on grounds that it could harm wildlife and cause traffic problems.

Continue reading...

Nasa's Juno mission begins to unravel the mysteries of the gas giant's interior structure.

A nerve agent was used to poison a Russian former spy and his daughter. What are they and what do they do?

The shortlist for the coveted Bird Photographer of the Year awards has been announced by Nature Photographers and the British Trust for Ornithology. Here we display a few of the entries in the running for the awards, which will be announced by Chris Packham in August at the annual Rutland Birdwatching Fair

Continue reading...

One in three women and girls around the world do not have a decent toilet of their own, and one in nine spend hours walking to collect water.

The Carbon Neutral Program and the Australasian EPD Programme Ltd have worked together to develop a new streamlined process that makes it easier for products with an Environmental Product Declaration to achieve carbon neutral certification.

Chicksands Wood, Bedfordshire A shaft of sunlight enticed me to a place where the wood’s medieval heart beat still

Almost seven centuries ago, a great calamity 50 miles out to the east sent men with axes and saws into priory-owned Chicksands Wood. The Norman central tower of Ely Cathedral had collapsed, and the architect of its replacement chose to bridge the gap not with stone, but with wood. To this day, the Octagon Tower has Bedfordshire oak timbers holding up its roof to heaven.

Continue reading...

Australian RMIT team make “crucial step” towards cheap, sustainable energy storage after demonstrating rechargeable “proton battery” prototype.

Tesla's all-electric heavy duty Semi truck makes its first trip, carrying Tesla battery packs, of course.

Two big coal units fail simultaneously in Victoria, taking total trips to 44 since start of summer, and 13 for brown coal generators since Christmas. Tesla battery hopped in again.

Research suggests that speakers of "present-tensed" languages such as German and Finnish - in which the future can be describe in the present tense - are more likely to support stronger climate policies. Astghik Mavisakalyan, Senior Research Fellow, Curtin University Clas Weber, Lecturer, University of Western Australia Yashar Tarverdi, Research fellow, Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre, Curtin University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.