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Some have argued that consensus messaging is counter-productive. Here’s why they’re wrong.

Unfortunately, humans don’t have infinite brain capacity, so no one can become an expert on every subject. But people have found ways to overcome our individual limitations through social intelligence, for example by developing and paying special attention to the consensus of experts. Modern societies have developed entire institutions to distill and communicate expert consensus, ranging from national academies of science to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Assessments of scientific consensus help us tap the collective wisdom of a crowd of experts. In short, people value expert consensus as a guide to help them navigate an increasingly complex and risk-filled world.

More generally, consensus is an important process in society. Human cooperation, from small groups to entire nations, requires some degree of consensus, for example on shared goals and the best means to achieve those goals. Indeed, some biologists have argued that “human societies are unable to function without consensus.” Neurological evidence even suggests that when people learn that they are in agreement with experts, reward signals are produced in the brain. Importantly, establishing consensus in one domain (e.g. climate science) can serve as a stepping stone to establishing consensus in other domains (e.g. need for climate policy).

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Increase puts Coke’s production at more than 110bn single-use plastic bottles a year, according to analysis by the green group

Coca-Cola increased its production of throwaway plastic bottles last year by well over a billion, according to analysis by Greenpeace.

The world’s biggest soft drinks company does not disclose how much plastic packaging it puts into the market. But analysis by the campaign group Greenpeace reveals what they say is an increase in production of single-use PET bottles from 2015-2016.

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The UK's hardiest snow patch melts for what is thought to be only the seventh time in 300 years.

Tonight's ABC Four Corners program is expected to detail fresh concerns about the controversial Adani coal mine in central Queensland.

Legal loophole means landlords won’t need to comply with regulations aiming to protect tenants and cut carbon emissions

Tenants in the UK’s draughtiest homes risk paying £1bn extra in energy bills because of a government loophole letting landlords off the hook, a charity has warned.

Landlords will be banned from letting poorly insulated homes from next April under new regulations designed to protect vulnerable tenants and cut carbon emissions.

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Research supports the idea that nature could be widely prescribed by doctors as a therapy, easing the burden on the NHS

Volunteers on wildlife projects benefit from a big boost to their mental health, according to new research. It advances the idea that nature could be widely prescribed by doctors as a therapy, which its supporters say would ease the burden on the NHS.

The new analysis tracked people across England taking part in projects run by the Wildlife Trusts, ranging from nature walks and conservation work to the Men in Sheds project in Bolton, which makes bird tables and bug hotels.

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Charta Smerelda aims to encourage 150,000 sailors to reduce plastic pollution in ocean and protect marine habitats

One of the most exclusive yacht clubs in the world has drawn up an environmental charter to ask 150,000 sailors across the globe to reduce plastic pollution in the ocean.

The Costa Smerelda yacht club in Sardinia, established by the Aga Khan 50 years ago, is publishing the charter to cut plastic waste at the One Ocean Forum conference. International sailing organisations have signed up to support the document which will be disseminated to 150,000 sailors who compete across the world.

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An Australian science breakthrough could solve the problem of e-waste recycling and create a network of small business opportunities.

Kinder Scout, Derbyshire Kestrel numbers may be in decline but we saw maybe half a dozen hanging in the updraft or plummeting into peat groughs

The perfect wild camping place: an obliging flat spot next to a horseshoe-shaped meander where the stream has carved out a tall bank from the soft shale grit, offering water close to hand and shelter from the wind. Best of all, our tents face towards a slope covered in reefs of purple heather that are being prowled by a kestrel. Though dinner consists of a bag of rehydrated dust, the opportunity to eat while watching a wild bird at work without hurry or distraction makes it feel positively luxurious.

I never fail to be captivated by kestrel flight; the suspenseful hovering, then the sudden swoop, that combination of charged stillness and sudden action that Gerard Manley Hopkins thrilled to in Windhover: “High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing… / then off, off forth on swing, / As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend.” Over an hour or so it makes several apparently unsuccessful plunges into the heather before finally reappearing with a vole in its talons.

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Mercury pollution, often released from gold mining and coal power stations, is a global problem. Shutterstock

Mercury pollution has a long legacy in the environment. Once released into the air, it can cycle between the atmosphere and ecosystems for years or even decades before ending up deep in the oceans or land.

The amount of mercury in the ocean today is about six times higher than it was before humans began to release it by mining. Even if we stopped all human mercury emissions now, ocean mercury would only decline by about half by 2100.

To address the global and long-lasting mercury problem, a new United Nations treaty called the Minamata Convention on Mercury came into effect last month. The treaty commits participating countries to limit the release of mercury and monitor the impacts on the environment. Australia signed the Convention in 2013 and is now considering ratification.

Read more: Why won’t Australia ratify an international deal to cut mercury pollution?

Until now, we have only been able to guess how much mercury might be in the air over tropical Australia. Our new research, published in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, shows that there is less mercury in the Australian tropics than in the northern hemisphere – but that polluted northern hemisphere air occasionally comes to us.

A global problem

While most of mercury’s health risks come from its accumulation in ocean food webs, its main entry point into the environment is through the atmosphere. Mercury in air comes from both natural sources and human activities, including mining and burning coal. One of the biggest mercury sources is small-scale gold mining – a trade that employs millions of people in developing countries but poses serious risks to human health and the environment.

Small-scale gold mining is an economic mainstay for millions of people, but it releases mercury directly into the air and water sources.

Once released to the air, mercury can travel thousands of kilometres to end up in ecosystems far away from the original source.

Measuring mercury in the tropics

While the United Nations was gathering signatures for the Minamata Convention, we were busy measuring mercury at the Australian Tropical Atmospheric Research Station near Darwin. Our two years of measurements are the first in tropical Australia. They are also the only tropical mercury measurements anywhere in the Maritime Continent region covering southeast Asia, Indonesia, and northern Australia.

We found that mercury concentrations in the air above northern Australia are 30-40% lower than in the northern hemisphere. This makes sense; most of the world’s population lives north of the Equator, so most human-driven emissions are there too.

More surprising is the seasonal pattern in the data. There is more mercury in the air during the dry season than the wet season.

The Australian monsoon appears to be partly responsible for the seasonal change. The amount of mercury jumps up sharply at the start of the dry season when the winds shift from blowing over the ocean to blowing over the land.

In the dry season the air passes over the Australian continent before arriving at the site, while in the wet season the air usually comes from over the ocean to the west of Darwin. Howard et al., 2017 (modified)

But wind direction can’t explain the whole story. Mercury is likely being removed from the air by the intense rains that characterise the wet season. In other words, the lower mercury in the air during the wet season may mean more mercury is being deposited to the ocean and the land at this time of year. Unfortunately, there simply isn’t enough information from Australian ecosystems to know how this impacts local plants and wildlife.

Fires also play a role. Mercury previously absorbed by grasses and trees can be released back to the atmosphere when the vegetation burns. In our data, we see occasional large mercury spikes associated with dry season fires. As we move into a bushfire season predicted to be unusually severe, we may see even more of these spikes.

Air from the north

Although mercury levels were usually low in the wet season, on a few days each year the mercury jumped up dramatically.

To figure out where these spikes were coming from, we used two different models. These models combine our understanding of atmospheric physics with real observations of wind and other meteorological parameters.

Both models point to the same source: air transported from the north.

Australia is usually shielded from northern hemispheric air by a “chemical equator” that stops air from mixing. This barrier isn’t static – it moves north and south throughout the year as the position of the sun changes.

A few times a year, the chemical equator moves so far south that the top end of Australia actually falls within the atmospheric northern hemisphere. When this happens, polluted northern hemisphere air can flow directly to tropical Australia.

We observed 13 days when our measurement site near Darwin sampled more northern hemisphere air than southern hemisphere air. On each of these days, the amount of mercury in the air was much higher than on the days before or after.

Tracing the air backwards in time showed that the high-mercury air travelled over the Indonesian archipelago before arriving in Australia. We don’t yet know whether that mercury came from pollution, fires, or a mix of the two.

The highest mercury is observed when the air comes from the northern hemisphere. Howard et al., 2017 (modified) A global solution

To effectively reduce mercury exposure in sensitive ecosystems and seafood-dependent populations around the world, aggressive global action is necessary.

The cross-boundary influences on mercury that we have observed in northern Australia highlight the need for the type of multinational collaboration that the Minamata Convention will foster.

Our new data establish a baseline for monitoring the effectiveness of new actions taken under the Minamata Convention. With the first Conference of the Parties having taken place last week, hopefully it will only be a matter of time before we begin to see the benefit.

Jenny Fisher receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the L'Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science Fellowship program.

Peter Nelson received funding from the Commonwealth Department of Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts. He is co-lead of the UN Environment Partnership on Mercury Control from Coal Combustion.

Dean Howard and Grant C Edwards do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.

When energy assets were being sold off, many politicians thought that people would blame the industry for any problems, not governments. Sorry guys. Everyone knows you write the rules and supposedly enforce them.

Tesla is bringing scalable energy products and services including the award-winning Powerwall to customers with the opening of its first store in Adelaide at Westfield Marion.

Scientists develop new ways to harness energy from evaporation.

Energy Secretary ignores his own grid study to make good on his threats to punish renewables.

It’s a year to the day since the entire state of South Australia was plunged into darkness. And what a year it’s been, for energy policy geeks and political tragics alike.

Beneath the canopy lies at last a healthy and rich biodiversity — Myanmar.

India's Environment Minster Jairam Ramesh says Australia has not done its homework on the Adani Group.

Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 8 October 1917

Winchelsea, October 7
Fine sensibilities have their penalties, God knows, more particularly in districts crowded by those who have them not; but the discriminations they make possible and the resultant harmonies of these discriminations are an offset that one would not forgo, especially with the added zest of memory. Lie on the dried bents, stretching your limbs to warm them in the last of the autumn sunshine; shut your eyes and listen. The first sound is like the patter of soft rain. You know that’s nonsense, because you can feel the hot sun, and you easily identify the aspen on
the slope above you. The harsher rustling comes from the heat-charred leaves of the chestnut near by. Through these, as you listen, comes a softer, sweeter, much higher note; a silky, lulling sound which comes and goes with the wind. You open one lazy eye and note the swaying of the reeds in the dykes. A long pause. The wind seems almost to have dropped, and yet you hear another insistent little noise, a fine low hissing, which makes you think of the “fire-magic” music. What can it be? This time you are nonplussed, and even when your eyes are opened the puzzle remains, because then, suddenly, you don’t hear it any more.

Lie down again and close them; stillness; no sounds except those you have already identified. Then again the tiny shrilling: it is the grass! The dried bents, whose miniature music grows so plain to the listener. A long and satisfied pause is roused by a new rushing roar. Is it possible that that shallow, lapping sea can so soon have whipped up to something like tempest? Then memory comes to your aid, and without opening your eyes you confidently murmur –

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Suzie Imber, who beat 11 people to the prize, is "excited" she could "one day end up in space".

Most of the world's wild horses, such as the Australian brumby, are outside their historic native range. Andrea Harvey

Throughout history, humans have taken plants and animals with them as they travelled the world. Those that survived the journey to establish populations in the diaspora have found new opportunities as they integrate into new ecosystems.

These immigrant populations have come to be regarded as “invaders” and “aliens” that threaten pristine nature. But for many species, migration may just be a way to survive the global extinction crisis.

In our recently published study, we found that one of the Earth’s most imperilled group of species is hanging on in part thanks to introduced populations.

Megafauna - plant-eating terrestrial mammals weighing more than 100kg - have established in new and unexpected places. These “feral” populations are rewilding the world with unique and fascinating ecological functions that had been lost for thousands of years.

Today’s world of giants is only a shadow of its former glory. Around 50,000 years ago, giant kangaroos, rhino-like diprotodons, and other unimaginable animals were lost from Australia.

Read more: Giant marsupials once migrated across an Australian Ice Age landscape

Later, around 12,000 years ago, the last of the mammoths, glyptodonts, several species of horses and camels, house-sized ground sloths and other great beasts vanished from North America.

In New Zealand, a mere 800 years ago, a riot of giant flightless birds still grazed and browsed the landscape.

The loss of Earth’s largest terrestrial animals at the end of the Pleistocene was most likely caused by humans.

Sadly, even those large beasts that survived that collapse are now being lost, with 60% of today’s megafauna threatened with extinction. This threat is leading to international calls for urgent intervention to save the last of Earth’s giants.

A wilder world than we think

Formal conservation distribution maps show that much of Earth is empty of megafauna. But this is only a part of the picture.

Many megafauna are now found outside their historic native ranges. In fact, thanks to introduced populations, regional megafauna species richness is substantially higher today than at any other time during the past 10,000 years.

Megafauna have expanded beyond their historic native range to rewild the world. Number of megafauna per region, in their ‘native’ range only (a) and in their full range (b) Modified and reproduced from Lundgren et al. 2017

Worldwide introductions have increased the number of megafauna by 11% in Africa and Asia, by 33% in Europe, by 57% in North America, by 62% in South America, and by 100% in Australia.

Australia lost all of its native megafauna tens of thousands of years ago, but today has eight introduced megafauna species, including the world’s only wild population of dromedary camels.

Australia lost all of its native megafauna tens of thousands of years ago, but is now home to eight introduced species, including the world’s only population of wild dromedary camels. Remote camera trap footage from our research program shows wild brumbies, wild donkeys and wild camels sharing water sources with Australian dingoes, emus and bustards in the deserts of South Australia.

These immigrant megafauna have found critical sanctuary. Overall, 64% of introduced megafauna species are either threatened, extinct, or declining in their native ranges.

Some megafauna have survived thanks to domestication and subsequent “feralisation”, forming a bridge between the wild pre-agricultural landscapes of the early Holocene almost 10,000 years ago, to the wild post-industrial ecosystems of the Anthropocene today.

Wild cattle, for example, are descendants of the extinct aurochs. Meanwhile, the wild camels of Australia have brought back a species extinct in the wild for thousands of years. Likewise, the vast majority of the world’s wild horses and wild donkeys are feral.

There have been global calls to rewild the world, but rewilding has already been happening, often with little intention and in unexpected ways.

A small population of wild hippopotamuses has recently established in South America. The nicknamed “cocaine hippos” are the offspring of animals who escaped the abandoned hacienda of Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar.

Colombia’s growing ‘cocaine hippo’ population is descended from animals kept at Pablo Escobar’s hacienda.

By insisting that only idealised pre-human ecosystems are worth conserving, we overlook the fact that these emerging new forms of wilderness are not only common but critical to the survival of many existing ecosystems.

Vital functions

Megafauna are Earth’s tree-breakers, wood-eaters, hole-diggers, trailblazers, wallowers, nutrient-movers, and seed-carriers. By consuming coarse, fibrous plant matter they drive nutrient cycles that enrich soils, restructure plant communities, and help other species to survive.

The wide wanderings of megafauna move nutrients uphill that would otherwise wash downstream and into the oceans. These animals can be thought of as “nutrient pumps” that help maintain soil fertility. Megafauna also sustain communities of scavengers and predators.

In North America, we have found that introduced wild donkeys, locally known as “burros”, dig wells more than a metre deep to reach groundwater. At least 31 species use these wells, and in certain conditions they become nurseries for germinating trees.

Introduced wild donkeys (burros) are engineering the Sonoran Desert, United States.

The removal of donkeys and other introduced megafauna to protect desert springs in North America and Australia seems to have led to an exuberant growth of wetland vegetation that constricted open water habitat, dried some springs, and ultimately resulted in the extinction of native fish. Ironically, land managers now simulate megafauna by manually removing vegetation.

It is likely that introduced megafauna are doing much more that remains unknown because we have yet to accept these organisms as having ecological value.

Living in a feral world

Like any other species, the presence of megafauna benefits some species while challenging others. Introduced megafauna can put huge pressure on plant communities, but this is also true of native megafauna.

Whether we consider the ecological roles of introduced species like burros and brumbies as desirable or not depends primarily on our own values. But one thing is certain: no species operates in isolation.

Although megafauna are very large, predators can have significant influence on them. In Australia, dingo packs act cooperatively to hunt wild donkeys, wild horses, wild water buffalo and wild boar. In North America, mountain lions have been shown to limit populations of wild horses in some areas of Nevada.

Visions of protected dingoes hunting introduced donkeys and Sambar deer in Australia, or protected wolves hunting introduced Oryx and horses in the American West, can give us a new perspective on conserving both native and introduced species.

Nature doesn’t stand still. Dispensing with visions of historic wilderness, and the associated brutal measures usually applied to enforce those ideals, and focusing on the wilderness that exists is both pragmatic and optimistic.

After all, in this age of mass extinction, are not all species worth conserving?

This research will be presented at the 2017 International Compassionate Conservation Conference in Sydney.

Daniel Ramp is the Director of the Centre for Compassionate Conservation (CfCC) at UTS. The CfCC collaborates with, and receives research grants from, a range of government, industry, and NGOs to work on conservation actions that address conservation problems and promote compassion for wild animals through peaceful coexistence. He is a Director of Voiceless, which is a funding partner of the Centre.

Arian Wallach, Erick Lundgren, and William Ripple do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.