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Only lowering our living standards will achieve sustainable growth. That’s the message from Satyajit Das.

Only lowering our living standards will achieve sustainable growth. That’s the message from Satyajit Das.

Cycling UK is raising funds to replicate nationwide a West Midlands police initiative that teaches drivers how to overtake cyclists safely

More than 2 million Britons cycle every day, and about 6.6 million ride at least once a month. For most of these people, the cycling infrastructure will be poor and they will be on the road mixing with traffic in all its forms where close passes will sadly be the norm.

According to findings from Dr Rachel Aldred’s Near Miss project, drivers overtaking cyclists too closely account for a third of threatening encounters that cyclists have with motor vehicles.

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Six years on, significant challenges remain in cleaning up the Fukushima plant.

Scientists use hair to locate where distinct groups lived in Australia up to 50,000 years ago.

The insect’s abdomen pulsed – with a sudden flexing of its armour-like plates it was readying itself to fly, feed and pollinate

Winter winds had worked their way into the sills and splits in a wooden gate. Silver birch seeds and seed cases had been blown and wedged into every gap. Many more had been whisked through the bars into the lee of the west wind only to snag in spiders’ webs, and there they hung, in the grubby threads that had become necklaces of detritus.

Related: When is a wasp not a wasp? When it's a hoverfly

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Citizen science projects are a way to contribute to science from your own backyard. Shutterstock

Our backyards are home to many scuttling, slithering and scampering creatures, which are often the subject of fascination. But they can also play a key role in tracking the changes in the world around us – for science.

Science is a vital tool to monitor the world, but scientists can’t do it all alone. Ordinary citizens can help by getting involved in a citizen science project.

People are spending weekends with their friends and families learning more about their backyards and gathering data that would otherwise be inaccessible to scientists.

They’re helping to manage invasive species, tree death, diseases and animal health. And it’s a way to take responsibility for the environment, urban areas, farmland and the creatures that visit our gardens.

Here are just a few ways you can get involved too.

Birds in backyards

Bird feeders and water dispensers are a great way to monitor human interactions with wildlife. If you have them, you can see the effect they have on your garden. You may even get a visit from a threatened species.

This project, created by researchers at Deakin and Griffith universities, aims to find out how people influence bird numbers and species diversity, and to measure the impact of food and water provisions. The organisers are looking for volunteers.

Additionally, BirdLife Australia’s Birds in Backyards is a project that collects reports of backyard bird sightings for analysis through the data-collection site Birdata. The site also contains resources on bird-friendly gardening, a bird finder tool (for identifying that pesky bird), forums and events.

Aggressive birds?

You may have heard the story of the bell miner (Manorina melanophrys), its feeding habits, aggressive behaviour and its association with a plant sickness known as eucalypt dieback.

A bell miner hangs from the trees. David Cook/Flickr, CC BY-NC

The Bell Miner Colony Project, which I run, looks at the bell miners’ habitat choice and movements, and investigates whether they really cause dieback. The project, developed two years ago, looks to answer questions about bell miner distribution across the east coast of Australia, and helps with managing forests and gardens.

Most people either love or hate bell miners. I personally love them, so I want to find out what they are really doing on a species scale.

One colony lives in the Melbourne Botanic Gardens and another in the Melbourne Zoo, so they are easy to see and visit. They make a distinctive “tink” call throughout the day, which can be used to monitor density. If you have seen any, please report them.

Tracking ferals

If your area seems to be riddled with pests, Feral Scan is a website for surveying and identifying them. The data is compiled and plotted on a map to create a scanner for previous sightings.

Another website for reporting biodiversity sightings is the Atlas of Living Australia. Any species seen in your backyard or during your travels can be added to the searchable database of sightings from across the nation.

Helping wombats

WomSAT maps and record wombats and wombat burrow locations. So if you’ve seen wombats running around, let them know.

A wombat infected with mange. Upsticksngo/Flickr, CC BY

There is also a call for volunteers in the ACT to help treat wombats with mange infections. Mange is a skin disease caused by mites, which leaves wombats itching until they scab. Volunteers help by applying treatments outside wombat burrows and monitoring the burrows with cameras.

Weed spotting

For those of you who are not into animals, there is a project for detecting new and emerging weeds in Queensland.

Queensland Herbarium teaches weed identification and mapping skills so that you can send your weed specimens and accompanying data to them.

This helps scientists determine where weeds are, how they spread and the best process for large-scale management.

Kathryn Teare Ada Lambert founded The Bell-Miner-Colony Project and is always on the lookout for interesting citizen science projects to get involved in.

New data suggests SA's September blackout rekindled the state's love affair with rooftop solar, spurring a more than 17% uptick in installations from October to December 2016.

One company’s mission to make every surface soak up the sun - rom car parks, to food cars, jackets and army tents.

Want to see energy progress? Head west to California.

Tesla's Lyndon Rive says company's Powerpacks could fix SA power crisis in just over 100 days. Confirms Tesla "in talks" with Australian utilities.

Gas shortage may be a win for battery storage. Tesla says it cheaper than gas; Reputex says wind, solar+storage beats gas already.

Malcolm Turnbull says he wants to take ideology out of energy but he shows every sign of another manufactured political fight

If you’ve watched the inglorious spectacle of the failure of Australian politics on climate and energy policy over the last 10 years, it’s a bit hard to look out on the wreckage without feeling sick to the stomach.

But look we must and, if we look now, we are able to chart the consequences of abject failure in highly specific ways.

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A new global online matchmaking platform – described as being like a dating site for the renewable energy industry – will be launched in Sydney tonight.

Global infrastructure and renewable energy leader ACCIONA has made its first major investment in an Australian company with the acquisition of Victoria’s leading diversified civil engineering services business, Geotech Group.

Twenty businesses across the state will share in $200,000 of NSW Government funding as part of a program to help companies adopt renewable energy and be more energy efficient.

Surge in October last year helped greenhouse gas emissions fall by 3.57m tonnes in December quarter

A sharp drop in Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions at the end of last year came courtesy of a spike in renewable energy generation in a single month, according to a new study.

Australia’s emissions fell by 3.57m tonnes in the three months to December, putting them back on track to meet quarterly commitments made in Paris after a blowout the previous quarter.

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Tesla's launches 14kWh Powerwall 2, confirming pricing and predicting 100% of solar homes will have battery storage within 10 years.

Four female apprentices have started new careers in the energy industry at EnergyAustralia’s Yallourn power station in the Latrobe Valley.

Australian Energy Market Operator predicts shortfalls in New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia ‘if we do nothing’

The Australian Energy Market Operator has warned that Australia is facing energy shortages if governments do not carry out national planning as exports continue to dominate the country’s gas supply.

The Aemo report predicts New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia will be impacted from the summer of 2018-19 and warns that the tightening of the domestic gas market will have flow-on effects to the electricity sector unless there is an increase in gas supplies and development.

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