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Coral reefs, coastal mangroves and even forests could be insured to help pay for their protection and restoration, says the Nature Conservancy.

Migrating humpback whales avoid loud, nearby sounds. BRAHSS, Author provided

Air guns used for marine oil and gas exploration are loud enough to affect humpback whales up to 3km away, potentially affecting their migration patterns, according to our new research.

Whales’ communication depends on loud sounds, which can travel very efficiently over distances of tens of kilometres in the underwater environment. But our study, published today in the Journal of Experimental Biology, shows that they are affected by other loud ocean noises produced by humans.

As part of the BRAHSS (Behavioural Response of Humpback whales to Seismic Surveys) project, we and our colleagues measured humpback whales’ behavioural responses to air guns like those used in seismic surveys carried out by the offshore mining industry.

Read more: It’s time to speak up about noise pollution in the oceans

Air guns are devices towed behind seismic survey ships that rapidly release compressed air into the ocean, producing a loud bang. The sound travels through the water and into the sea bed, bouncing off various layers of rock, oil or gas. The faint echoes are picked up by sensors towed by the same vessel.

During surveys, the air guns are fired every 10-15 seconds to develop a detailed geological picture of the ocean floor in the area. Although they are not intended to harm whales, there has been concern for many years about the potential impacts of these loud, frequent sounds.

Sound research

Although it sounds like a simple experiment to expose whales to air guns and see what they do, it is logistically difficult. For one thing, the whales may respond to the presence of the ship towing the air guns, rather than the air guns themselves. Another problem is that humpback whales tend to show a lot of natural behavioural variability, making it difficult to tease out the effect of the air gun and ship.

There is also the question of whether any response by the whales is influenced more by the loudness of the air gun, or how close the air blast is to the whale (although obviously the two are linked). Previous studies have assumed that the response is driven primarily by loudness, but we also looked at the effect of proximity.

We used a small air gun and a cluster of guns, towed behind a vessel through the migratory path of more than 120 groups of humpback whales off Queensland’s sunshine coast. By having two different sources, one louder than the other, we were able to fire air blasts of different perceived loudness from the same distance.

We found that whales slowed their migratory speed and deviated around the vessel and the air guns. This response was influenced by a combination of received level and proximity; both were necessary. The whales were affected up to 3km away, at sound levels over 140 decibels, and deviated from their path by about 500 metres. Within this “zone”, whales were more likely to avoid the air guns.

Each tested group moved as one, but our analysis did not include the effects on different group types, such as a female with calf versus a group of adults, for instance.

Our results suggest that when regulating to reduce the impact of loud noise on whale behaviour, we need to take into account not just how loud the noise is, but how far away it is. More research is needed to find out how drastically the whales’ migration routes change as a result of ocean mining noise.

Rebecca Dunlop receives funding from the Joint Industry Programme on E&P Sound and Marine Life (JIP), managed by the International Association of Oil & Gas Producers (IOGP), and from the US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.

Michael Noad receives funding from the Joint Industry Programme on E&P Sound and Marine Life (JIP), managed by the International Association of Oil & Gas Producers (IOGP), and from the US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.

Wayne Lotter had received numerous death threats while battling international ivory-trafficking networks

The head of an animal conservation NGO who had received numerous death threats has been shot and killed by an unknown gunman in Tanzania.

Wayne Lotter, 51, was shot on Wednesday evening in the Masaki district of the city of Dar es Salaam. The wildlife conservationist was being driven from the airport to his hotel when his taxi was stopped by another vehicle. Two men, one armed with a gun opened his car door and shot him.

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Elusive and endangered white-letter hairstreak discovered in a field in the Scottish borders could become the 34th species to live and breed in the country

Scotland has a new species of butterfly: the elusive and endangered white-letter hairstreak has been discovered in a field in Berwickshire, 100 metres from the English border.

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Qualified graduates are struggling to find paid jobs and many give up to pursue a different career. The result is a net loss for conservation work, reports Mongabay

Nika Levikov swore she would never work as a waitress again. But, today — with a master’s degree in conservation science from Imperial College London — she’s taking orders, delivering drinks, and cleaning tables to support herself.

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Supermarkets selling out-of-date produce and apps that identify food at risk of being binned are part of an ambitious plan to slash the nation’s food waste

“They might not taste quite the same,” says Naeeh Ahmed, 37, holding up for inspection a pack of Old El Paso soft tacos. The tower of boxes in front of him are three weeks past their best before date but Ahmed, operations manager at the Best Før supermarket in Oslo, says they’ll stay on display for a good few weeks yet. The same goes for the chocolate biscuits precariously piled up in the display – four weeks past their best before date – and the packs of Tassimo coffee pods that should have been sold in April. But all the prices reflect the product’s age: half-price for the tacos, two-thirds off the biscuits and, at 30 kroner (£3.66) for 32 pods, the coffee is also less than half its regular price.

It would be hard to find cheaper food in Oslo than that sold at Best Før. They flog the stuff that no one else has been able to get rid off. Products whose season has passed, or which have been overproduced, have been arriving at this small store since October last year when the mainstream Lentusgruppen supermarket chain heeded the call of the Norwegian government and decided to take food waste seriously. They established an offshoot in Oslo, the first of its kind in the city, selling the stuff other stores and suppliers throw away. It’s all up front – the shop looks like any other, but a large sign informs customers of the slightly different nature of the food down their aisles and in the chillers, which includes chicken fillets frozen a couple of days before going off.

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A planetary takeover by ocean algae 650 million years ago was the kick that transformed life on Earth.

The Ride of the Falling Rain on the Hebridean island of Islay has no entry fee, route card or medals, but its laidback, friendly vibe keeps riders coming back despite the weather

The Ride of the Falling Rain is an annual cycling event on the Hebridean island of Islay that proudly describes itself as “anti-sportive”.

Held on the first Sunday in August, there is no entry fee, no feed stations, no timing chips and no medal or certificate at the end. Yet in its 14-year history, it has attracted a hard core of regulars who travel from all over the UK.

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Ford of Europe has linked up with Deutsche Post to build a larger version of the electric truck DHL designed itself last year.

Clean Energy Finance Corporation makes two new investments in companies focused on one of the easiest ways to reduce consumer power bills.

Prof John Underhill argues that geology is fundamental but has been forgotten in assessments of UK’s shale gas capability

Fracking for oil and gas in the UK may produce much less fuel – and profits – than has been mooted, according to research based on seismic imaging of the country’s underlying geology.

Most of the areas in which deposits of onshore “unconventional” gas and oil are likely to be found were affected by tectonic activity along the Atlantic plate about 55m years ago.

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Daddry Shield, Weardale The architecture of the flower choreographs the insects’ movements, making pollination likely

The footpath to St John’s Chapel, through hay meadows long since cut, follows the south bank of the Wear. Today the water was shallow and clear. But after heavy rain in the upper dale the river becomes a torrent and it has eroded small terraces so stony and steep they are never cut at hay time. These places are refuges for a late-summer flora of Campanula rotundifolia, harebells as blue as the sky overhead.

It’s a place to sit among the flowers on an afternoon when summer seems to be slipping past too quickly.

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Today's SA chart illustrates the simple fact that as gas power increases penetration in the state, the electricity pool price climbs higher.

Analysis of toxic emissions from Australia’s coal plants has revealed our per capita mercury emissions are roughly double the global average.

Tasmanian Energy Security report reasserts the importance of more diverse renewable energy supply. But ignores battery storage.

Australian energy storage industry registers thousands of protests against Standards Australia’s proposed home battery ban. Industry body says if draft adopted, the energy storage industry in Australia and globally will be “thrown into chaos.”

What a gas: one of Moreland's new hydrogen-powered garbage trucks. Takver/Flickr.com, CC BY

A while ago I asked what types of people will lead our great energy transition.

Well, some of them seem to be living in North Melbourne. Earlier this month I watched as Victoria’s Climate Change Minister Lily D’Ambrosio announced A$1 million for a hydrogen refuelling station to power zero-emission local government vehicles. The money, from the New Energy Jobs Fund, will sit alongside A$1.5 million that Moreland Council is investing over three years.

The Council hopes that rainwater it harvests from its buildings can be turned into fuel, with the help of power from its solar panels and wind turbines, which can in turn be used to run its fleet of garbage trucks. If (and it is an if) everything works, then residents get less air and noise pollution, and the council gets a smaller energy bill and carbon footprint. You can read my account of the launch here.

Of course, there are doubters. One commenter under my report wrote:

It amazes me how anybody could still think [hydrogen fuel cells] are a step in the right direction for domestic land transportation. Their inherent lack of efficiency compared to batteries, difficulty with storage, explosion risk and the cost of building the support infrastructure has been demonstrated innumerable times.

Yet Japan is planning for 800,000 hydrogen-fuelled vehicles by 2030. Are all of these governments really backing the wrong horse?

This is the nub of the problem: technological outcomes generally become clear after the fact, and rarely before. After a “dominant design” has survived the battles then hindsight, via historians, tells us it was obvious all along which type of gizmo was going to win.

Scholars have long pointed out that this is a fallacy – starting with the humble bicycle. The truth is that technological innovation is not the clean predictable process that pristine white lab coats and gleaming laboratories would have us think.

The history of technology is littered with the carcasses of superior ideas that were killed by inferior marketing (Betamax tapes, anyone?). Meanwhile there are the success stories that only happened through serendipity – such as Viagra, text messages, and Post-it notes. Sometimes technologies simply don’t catch the public eye, and their proponents withdraw them and repurpose them (hello Google Glass).

Even the most successful technologies have teething problems. Testing prototypes is not for the faint-hearted (as anyone who’s seen Robocop will vividly remember).

If there’s no clear and obvious technological route to follow, then an industry can end up “perseverating” – repeating the same thing insistently and redundantly. As these two studies show, the American car industry couldn’t decide what should replace the internal combustion engine, and so hedged their bets by flitting between various flavours of the month, from biofuels to LPG to hybrids and everything in between.

Risky business

This is what makes Moreland Council’s choices so interesting. It might make “more sense” to wait and see, to let someone else run all the risks, and then be a fast follower, with the advantages and disadvantages that entails. But of course if everyone does that, then nothing ever gets done.

Meanwhile, if civil society is pushing for change, and a council’s own political makeup shifts (the Greens did well in the last local elections), and there are determined officers, then an experiment can be conducted. Coincidentally enough, Moreland Council’s chief exective Nerina Di Lorenzo recently completed a PhD on local governments’ attitudes to risk. Within a year or three she’ll no doubt have enough material for a post-doc.

Meanwhile, South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill seems to have lost all hope that the black hole-sized vacuum in federal energy and climate policy will ever be fixed. He has famously commissioned the world’s biggest lithium battery and, now, a long-awaited concentrated solar thermal power plant in Port Augusta.

Learning process

What we are seeing in Moreland is a local council and its state government acting together (what academics snappily call “multilevel governance”), while further west we have another state government that has resolved to push its chips onto the green baize and spin the roulette wheel.

Will these experiments work? Will the right lessons be learned, from either failure or success (or more likely, living as we do in the real world, a mixture of both)? How can the “successful” technologies (however that is defined) be scaled up at tremendous speed, so we somehow clamber up the learning curve faster than we slither up the Keeling Curve of atmospheric carbon dioxide levels?

Can it be done? We need industrial quantities of luck, and optimism. And seriously – what do we have to lose by trying, other than the love of some vested interests?

Scientists trace nuclear waste from Sellafield over 15,000km to Bermuda to see how the ocean transports carbon.

Trump is once again allowing hunters in Alaska to shoot bear cubs and hibernating bears, but is this as bad as it sounds?

Indian scientists say they can monitor the physiological health of elephants by analysing their dung.