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Rooftop solar pushes South Australia to record low demand (again)
Herbert Smith Freehills advises New Energy Solar on its ASX listing and A$300 million public offering
Redflow aims for 250 batteries per month from Thailand
Googong Foreshores added to Commonwealth Heritage List
Sharks in trouble as new census starts in Indo-Pacific
Five reasons not to spray the bugs in your garden this summer
Fracking protester warns: 'Yorkshire's gorgeous, but that can be taken away’
Test drilling by Third Energy expected to get go-ahead soon at Kirby Misperton, the first in UK since 2011
For the past year, Leigh Coghill has devoted her life to one thing – trying to stop the gas exploration company Third Energy from fracking on the outskirts of a tiny village in North Yorkshire. The 26-year-old from Wolverhampton, who “married into Yorkshire”, quit her job working for York council in November last year, deciding to devote herself to the cause.
Since September, when Third Energy started preparing the site at Kirby Misperton for drilling, she has been one of a group of around forty Ryedale locals to have spent almost every day protesting next to the gates to the well, holding banners and placards, and watching in dismay as lorries trundle in.
Continue reading...The COP23 climate change summit in Bonn and why it matters
Halting dangerous global warming means putting the landmark Paris agreement into practice – without the US – and tackling the divisive issue of compensation
The world’s nations are meeting for the 23rd annual “conference of the parties” (COP) under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) which aims to “prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system”, ie halt global warming. It is taking place in Bonn, Germany from 6-17 November.
Continue reading...Anger over Trump support for coal at UN climate talks
The eco guide to big ethics
Is it good news or bad when environment-friendly brands are bought out by major industry players?
At a recent event held by the outdoor clothing brand Patagonia I detected a sheepish air. Nothing to do with eco wool, but rumours that the company was about to surpass a $1bn turnover.
I'd rather market share went to Patagonia than to brands without discernible values
Continue reading...One step beyond organic or free-range: Dutch farmer’s chickens lay carbon-neutral eggs
There’s the much-criticised battery hen egg, and then the pricier organic and free-range varieties. But for the truly ethically committed, how about the carbon-neutral egg, laid in what has been billed as the world’s most environmentally friendly farm?
Dutch stores are now selling so-called “Kipster eggs” laid at a shiny new farm near the south-eastern city of Venray. “Kip” means chicken in Dutch, “ster” means star, and it’s no coincidence the name rhymes with hipster. The intention is to rethink the place of animals in the food chain, according to Ruud Zanders, the poultry farmer and university lecturer behind the farm, which includes a visitor centre, corporate meeting room and even a free cappuccino machine.
Continue reading...Our national parks need protection
‘For us, the land is sacred’: on the road with the defenders of the world’s forests
Of the many thousands of participants at the Bonn climate conference which begins on 6 November, there will arguably be none who come with as much hope, courage and anger as the busload of indigenous leaders who have been criss-crossing Europe over the past two weeks, on their way to the former German capital.
The 20 activists on the tour represent forest communities that have been marginalised over centuries but are now increasingly recognised as important actors against climate change through their protection of carbon sinks.
Continue reading...Climate change: US report at odds with some in Trump team
Coral bleaching badly affected reefs of Kimberley, study finds
Up to 80% of Kimberley’s inshore reef bleached in El Niño heatwave of 2016, with about 29% of the coral at Rottnest, off Perth, also affected
Up to 80% of coral in inshore reefs in the Kimberley was bleached during the global mass bleaching event that also affected 93% of the Great Barrier Reef in the summer of 2016-2016, according to new research.
Led by scientists from the University of Western Australia and published in Scientific Reports this week, the research found between 57% and 80% of corals in the Kimberley, particularly at Montgomery Reef, the largest inshore coral reef in Australia, were bleached in April 2016.
Continue reading...Country diary: a storm here is a spectator sport of the utmost drama
Castlemartin, Pembrokeshire To see how many features I once climbed have been battered away by wave and wind is a salutary lesson in human ambition
Meadowsweet still flowered along lanes through an obscenity of tank ranges; grasses riffled and glistened in the verges; far offshore, Lundy dipped in and out of view. Nowhere’s better in stormy weather than south Pembrokeshire’s Castlemartin peninsula. Here the elemental interplay of land and sea is slow-motion spectator sport of the utmost drama.
I was there when Storm Ophelia was at her raging height, to watch sculpting forces of weather at work on massively bedded, malleable limestone. In my decades as a rock climber, pioneering routes on this coast obsessed me. To look east from the Green Bridge of Wales and see how many of the features I had climbed have been battered away by wave and wind is a salutary lesson in human ambition.
Continue reading...Tasmania is the roadkill capital of the world
Living with drought in Australia
US report finds climate change 90% manmade, contradicting Trump officials
Major report by government agencies goes against senior members of Trump administration and finds evidence of global warming stronger than ever
A comprehensive review by 13 US federal agencies concludes that evidence of global warming is stronger than ever and that more than 90% of it has been caused by humans.
The conclusion contradicts a favorite talking point of senior members of the Trump administration.
Continue reading...