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Hazelwood closure is most potent symbol of an energy market that has failed consumers. The future is localised generation, and faster, cleaner, cheaper power. The incumbents need to learn to adapt, and so do the politicians.

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British gardens also saw a ‘waxwing winter’ in this winter’s Big Garden Birdwatch, conservationists say

The number of robins visiting gardens hit a 20-year high in this winter’s Big Garden Birdwatch, conservationists said.

Average numbers of the robin seen in gardens were up to their highest levels since 1986, making it the seventh most commonly seen bird in the citizen science survey in January.

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In the latest in our series on Australian green energy projects, we find out how the ACT is transitioning to 100% renewable energy, aided by the country’s largest community-owned solar farm

• How the ‘nonna effect’ got Darebin’s pensioners signing up to solar
• How Daylesford’s windfarm took back the power

As Australia remains mired in a broken debate about the supposed dangers of renewable energy, some states and territories are ignoring the controversy and steaming ahead.

While Australia is far from the renewable capital of the world, the Australian Capital Territory may soon be among the world’s top renewable energy regions. And as it transitions, the ACT is demonstrating the benefits of the renewables boom to the rest of the country.

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Helped by the country’s largest community-owned solar farm, Australia’s capital is making plans to provide all its energy from renewables. Wind turbines now being built around Canberra and the 1.2MW community-owned solar farm will ensure the ACT meets its 2020 goal. About 600 locals have a share in the scheme

• Renewables roadshow: how Canberra took lead in renewable energy race

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The roar of the furnaces, the rattle of the conveyors, and the occasional whoop of a siren marked out both day and night at Hazelwood. The pungent smell of brown coal permeates the air, and the fine particles would work their way into your clothes, hair and shoes.

On quiet evenings you could hear it all the way over in the nearby town of Churchill, seven kilometres away. That distant hum has been a comforting one as the station produced power in all weathers, day and night, for more than five decades. For many in Churchill and the other coal towns of Victoria’s Latrobe Valley, the noise also represented continuity of employment for more than 450 workers.

Those old certainties are now disappeared. The eight units that make up the 1,600 megawatt power station were progressively decommissioned this week, all now shut off ahead of Hazelwood’s official closure on March 31. While some 250 workers will remain, the distant hum has settled to a whisper.

When the brand new Hazelwood power station was officially opened on March 12, 1971, it represented a new and confident future for the Latrobe Valley region and the state of Victoria. Plans for this major infrastructure project were first made in 1956 and the first contracts signed in 1959. Victorian Premier Sir Henry Bolte spoke of the Latrobe Valley as the “Ruhr of Australia”.

The first six generating units were constructed between 1964 and 1967, and the plant was eventually expanded to include another two. All eight were operational by the time of the official opening in 1971. The station was fed by the Morwell open cut brown coal mine, and was built right next door to the mine’s open-cast pit. The Morwell mine eventually grew to such mammoth proportions that the nearby Morwell River had to be diverted three times. Each day, the mine fed more than 55,000 tonnes of brown coal into Hazelwood’s eight furnaces.

The Hazelwood station was planned, built and operated by the State Electricity Commission of Victoria (SECV). This government-owned body was formed in 1921 and had overseen the development of the power generation network in the Latrobe Valley. The first power station at Yallourn (now decommissioned) began providing Victoria with power in 1924, and was followed by further expansion at Yallourn with newer units that still operate today. The Morwell power station and briquette factory were completed in 1959 (and shut down in 2014), and the nearby Hazelwood completed the picture by 1971.

A postwar coal community

These power stations, along with the Morwell and Yallourn coal mines, defined the industrial heart of the Latrobe Valley as part of a postwar push to create entire communities in the region, centred on the coal industry. The SECV and then the state government had a meticulously planned vision, deciding on the location of new developments and entire new towns. By 1981 electricity generation and mining employed more than 10,000 workers in an overwhelmingly male-dominated workforce.

It had not all been plain sailing. Completion of the Morwell power station was delayed by financial constraints and then technical problems. Coal from the Morwell mine proved to be unsuitable for briquette manufacture and so the SECV reverted to using Yallourn coal in the briquette furnaces. The SECV also met with considerable local criticism over its decision to close the planned township of Yallourn so as to dig out the coal underneath it. Polluted though it was, many Yallourn residents had no desire to leave their tree-lined community.

The new town of Churchill, built to house the industrial workforce and their families, would accompany the Hazelwood development. Churchill was a model town located to avoid the prevailing winds from existing power stations, perched on a hill with views across the Latrobe valley, the distant Baw Baw ranges, and newly created lakes of Hazelwood Pondage. Churchill joined other new public housing developments in nearby Moe and Morwell to house the expanding workforce.

Yet life in the coal heartland came with its own problems. Issues with air quality began to become evident as early as the 1970s, while the privatisation of Hazelwood and the other power stations from 1996 led to 8,000 job losses. A 2004 WWF report named Hazelwood as the dirtiest power station in Australia, producing the most greenhouse emissions per megawatt of energy.

Hazelwood became a powerful political symbol and rallying cry for those concerned about the impact of carbon dioxide emissions on global warming. It has been credited with producing 5% of the nation’s power and 3% of its carbon dioxide emissions.

The media image of Hazelwood today, its eight stacks standing as a visual image of greenhouse emissions and industrial pollution, was forged in the decade since the WWF report. Worse was to come when it became the site of a coalmine fire that blazed for 45 days in February-March 2014, showering Morwell with smoke and ash and creating a major public health disaster.

The confident, modernist image of 1970s Hazelwood went up in smoke, but this image has not been forgotten by many in the Latrobe Valley who lived through it.

Federation University, through the Centre for Gippsland Studies, is planning to take part in a project to record the memories and experiences of Hazelwood workers. The author thanks Engie, who approved a site visit to research this article, and Mark Richards, a Hazelwood worker and CFMEU delegate who acted as a tour guide.

Erik Eklund does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.

Mars Inc, Staples, The Gap and others speak out against Trump’s sweeping executive order that begins to dismantle Obama’s Clean Power Plan

In 2015, when Barack Obama signed the nation’s clean power plan, more than 300 companies came out in support, calling the guidelines “critical for moving our country toward a clean energy economy”. Now, as Donald Trump moves to strip those laws away, Mars Inc, Staples and The Gap are just a few of those US corporations who are challenging the new president’s reversal on climate policy.

Related: Trump's order signals end of US dominance in climate change battle

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Study shows extent to which US and western European demand for clothes, toys and mobile phones contributes to air pollution in developing countries

Western consumers who buy cheap imported toys, clothes and mobile phones are indirectly contributing to tens of thousands of pollution-related deaths in the countries where the goods are produced, according to a landmark study.

Nearly 3.5 million people die prematurely each year due to air pollution, the research estimates, and about 22% of these deaths are associated with goods and services that were produced in one region for consumption in another.

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Country Diarist who adopted the wilds of Scotland as his home and inspiration

Ray Collier, who has died aged 79, was devoted to the wildlife and landscape of Scotland, and used his years of experience, depth of knowledge and lively writing to kindle a similar love in others. A longstanding member of the Guardian’s band of Country Diarists, he also wrote for a sheaf of Highland newspapers, took eagerly to blogging when the world went online and was the author of two respected books.

Born in Gloucestershire, he adopted the magnificent wilds of Scotland as his home and inspiration when his work for the Nature Conservancy took him north in the 1960s. When he retired in 2002, he was the chief warden for Scottish Natural Heritage, and so absorbed in his patch that he let his passport lapse and never renewed it. The scenery and wildlife on his doorstep were more than ample, especially as the doorstep extended from his porch in Strathnairn, near Inverness, to the Western Isles, Cape Wrath and the English border.

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A 30-metre layer of salt discovered beneath Dead Sea reveals drought worse than any in human history – and it could happen again

Far below the Dead Sea, between Israel, Jordan and Palestinian territories, researchers have found evidence of a drought that has no precedent in human experience.

From depths of 300 metres below the landlocked basin, drillers brought to the surface a core that contained 30 metres of thick, crystalline salt: evidence that 120,000 years ago, and again about 10,000 years ago, rainfall had been only about one fifth of modern levels.

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