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The repeated bouts of warm weather this season could push the Arctic to a record low winter peak for the third year in a row.

Who could forget the energy “crises” that affected electricity supply across south-eastern Australia last year.

‘They are going to get a surprise and I am worried about them,’ says Catherine Tanna, joining push for transition to renewables

The boss of one of Australia’s largest energy suppliers says she is worried about customers’ power bills after the latest heatwave in the country’s south-east.

Energy Australia’s managing director, Catherine Tanna, has joined the push for a transition to newer forms of energy, saying bipartisanship is needed to draw up a national energy policy. The company operates sites including the Yallourn plant in the Latrobe valley, a brown-coal power station in Victoria that supplies nearly a quarter of the state’s electricity.

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DEEPLY CONCERNING: Deep ocean trenches - considered the most remote places in the world - have levels of toxic, industrial chemicals 50 times higher than a highly polluted river system in China

We can learn a lot from Queenslanders. Shutterstock

Heatwaves across much of the country this summer have revealed a serious problem with our national housing stock.

Stressed electricity networks that can’t guarantee supply have led to politicians advising people not to go home, but to go to the movies instead. The risk is that houses aren’t built to mitigate the health risks of this kind of heat.

We are using air conditioning as a band-aid instead of identifying the cause and seriousness of the condition. Australia’s continued lack of planning to solve the problem is a risky strategy.

But imagine a future where we can reliably depend on our dwellings to help us “keep our cool”. A future where we don’t have to rely on free air conditioning at the local shopping centre, and where heatwaves don’t overstress our hospitals, electricity networks, or bank accounts.

A staged and comprehensive approach can create such a future – one that would improve our individual, family and national resilience.

Smarter design and construction

Rather than being seduced by the property market’s surface bling, we need to pay more attention to the quality of the building envelope – the roof, walls, windows and floor. We can manage unwanted heat inside our homes in two key ways.

The first is to stop the heat getting in. Many aspects of a home’s design (orientation, eaves, external shading and landscaping) and construction materials (roof colour and coating, insulation, glass and window type) can help control how hot it gets inside. Guides on these design features are available at the government’s Your Home website.

The second key is having strategies to manage unwanted heat. Again, this can be done through good design (with clerestory windows, solar chimneys, roof vents, and so on) and by using the right materials. Opening and closing your house in response to the outside temperature is also important.

For example, some houses combine aspects of traditional Queenslander architecture – deep eaves, shady verandas, casement windows and louvres – with modern materials like high-performance insulation and tinted low e-glass; dense internal materials such as rammed earth; and night-time ventilation. These homes rarely surpass 30℃, despite their southeast Queensland location.

Combining Queenslander design with new materials works magic! Wendy Miller

Sometimes mechanical assistance may be required, but rather than thinking that you need to air-condition the whole house, strategies such as “cooling the occupant” or creating a “safe retreat” – similar to that of a bushfire or cyclone shelter – are worth considering.

Better ratings

It is difficult to know the best design and construction, built to protect against extreme heat, when you see it. The star rating of Australian homes is one attempt to communicate this. It is an indication of how a specific house design and its materials determine internal temperature.

While a good start, the rating system is based on past average weather patterns. What would be better is using current or even future weather data. And knowing the expected temperature of each room in the house would help to find cost-effective solutions for improving the performance of new and existing homes.

Perhaps there is even a need for a “stress test” – giving the house a “heat index” colour code similar to the weather bureau’s forecasts for heatwaves.

Do our homes need a heat risk rating? Wendy Miller

On top of this we need to know that the dwelling in question has actually been built to the standards indicated by the design. Transparent and consistent inspection practices need to be implemented, but are practically non-existent across Australia today.

Leadership from government and industry

Some of the blame for the situation can be put on ideological differences about the role of government. For instance, building regulation is seen as “red tape” rather than consumer protection. The division of powers between governments also complicates the situation.

Despite these challenges, a few barriers should be addressed as a matter of urgency.

The community needs to understand that the current building requirements, which vary by state and by dwelling type, are inadequate. They certainly do not represent a house with safe indoor temperatures throughout the year.

Greater transparency is needed. In particular, “concessions” that allow the minimum standard to be further reduced should be removed from the star rating because these have no impact on internal temperatures.

Information about the performance standard of each dwelling needs to made available to everyone in every property transaction. We need to know more about the buildings we live in – preferably before we buy or rent.

The last step is to acknowledge that housing, health and energy issues are all strongly linked. In extreme weather these are also linked to disaster management and emergency services.

Can we fix it?

Governments have already embarked on several projects, including restructuring our health system, transitioning our electricity market, updating our National Construction Code, and refining our disaster management and emergency response strategy.

But the reforms must be holistic. Policies, regulation and infrastructure planning and expenditure in any one of these sectors can lead to unintended consequences in the others. A “one system” approach would create significant economic, social and environmental opportunities for everyone.

So, can we create a better future? If our politicians, and the associated industries, have the skills, foresight and courage to put your home – our homes – into these discussions, yes we can!

Wendy Miller has received funding from the Australian Research Council, the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility, the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage and the South Australia Department of State Development.

Chemicals banned in the 1970s have been found in the deepest reaches of the ocean, according to a new study.

Climate change is threatening about 700 endangered species and policymakers must act urgently to lessen impact

The impact of climate change on threatened and endangered wildlife has been dramatically underreported, with scientists calling on policymakers to act urgently to slow its effects before entire species are lost for good.

New analysis has found that nearly half (47%) of the mammals and nearly a quarter (24.4%) of the birds on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) red list of threatened species are negatively impacted by climate change – a total of about 700 species. Previous assessments had said only 7% of listed mammals and 4% of birds were impacted.

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Presence of manmade chemicals in most remote place on planet shows nowhere is safe from human impact, say scientists

Scientists have discovered “extraordinary” levels of toxic pollution in the most remote and inaccessible place on the planet – the 10km-deep Mariana trench in the Pacific ocean.

Small crustaceans that live in the pitch-black waters of the trench, captured by a robotic submarine, were contaminated with 50 times more toxic chemicals than crabs that survive in heavily polluted rivers in China.

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Climate change, poaching, competition for food and water … elephants have never faced such threats. Here are more than 50 ways to give them a helping hand. Can you add to the list?

There is so much being done to help stop elephants being wiped out in the wild. We’ve identified more than 50 campaigns and organisations around the world, from well-known charities like the World Wide Fund for Nature to grassroots groups like Elephanatics in Canada and Laos-based ElefantAsia. If you think we’ve missed anyone or anything, let us know at elephant.conservation@theguardian.com. We’ll update the list with your suggestions.

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Journalists try to get facts right. Tabloid propagandists try to advance an agenda

Wikipedia editors recently voted to ban the Daily Mail tabloid as a source for their website after deeming it “generally unreliable.” To put the severity of this decision in context, Wikipedia still allows references to Russia Today and Fox News, both of which display a clear bias toward the ruling parties of their respective countries.

It thus may seem like a remarkable decision for Wikipedia to ban the Daily Mail, but fake news stories by David Rose in two consecutive editions of the Mail on Sunday – which echoed throughout the international conservative media – provide perfect examples of why the decision was justified and wise.

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Suresh Kumar Sharma is an auto-rickshaw driver in Delhi, a city with some of the world’s dirtiest air – and where many locals don’t know how unhealthy it is. We monitored the dangerous PM2.5 particles surrounding Suresh’s rickshaw for 12 hours, then had his lungs tested: ‘I was shocked’

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SENG Vic Event Reminder 20 February 2017

Glenridding, Lake District Warned off by the fell top assessor, ill-prepared ramblers hurry out of the mist away from England’s third-highest mountain

I’m early for my appointment in the Helvellyn youth hostel car park, and the only sign of life is a raven croaking prukk-prukk as it dives from Edmund’s Castle crag, its black wings turning a sheeny purple. I pull down my beanie hat and zip up my jacket collar.

Rather than the crisp panorama to be expected on so chilly a day, banners of cloud wreathe me. Treading the path from Red Tarn, I cannot see the mountain above, though I know it’s shaped like an armchair, flanked by Striding Edge as one arm rest and Swirral Edge the other; the lumbar support being Helvellyn’s 950 metres. Cupped in between is Red Tarn, formed by ice age moraine damming water.

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Draft guidelines to be released by Standards Australia suggests lithium ion battery storage devices such as Tesla Powerwalls should be banned from inside homes and garages in Australia, and only installed in separate "kiosks" or bunkers. It threatens to bring the industry to a halt.

Conservative media launches attack against chief scientist Alan Finkel for not whole-heartedly embracing fossil fuels as energy debate sinks further into mire.

Wholesale power prices in coal and gas dependent Queensland average $480/MWh over the past week. No wonder everyone wants to build solar farms.

Solar and wind "saved the day" in NSW on Friday, when two big coal units failed to produce and two big gas generators suddenly stopped generating. Rooftop solar also helping Queensland meet record demand.

PM Malcolm Turnbull has installed battery storage at his Point Piper home and upgraded his rooftop solar system.

Climate Change Authority member Clive Hamilton quits over Coalition's "unconscionable" and "perverse" clean coal push.

Pollinate Energy has successfully secured support from Tata Trusts.