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The support from conservative commentators for a low emissions target has quickly ended, just days after they discovered that the costs of wind and solar have fallen so much that an LET might do little to support new coal generation. The Australian’s Judith Sloan wrote on Wednesday that she now viewed a low emissions target […]

Evidence suggests the dinosaur had scales rather than feathers or fluff, as some have speculated.

International Energy Agency says unabated coal generation will have to stop within 14 years if continued at current rates, undermining claims that the Adani coal mine is good for the climate. IEA also says bar for low emissions target needs to be set at a fraction of that contemplated by Canberra.

Falling solar and wind prices have led to new power deals across the world despite investment in renewables falling

Renewable energy capacity around the world was boosted by a record amount in 2016 and delivered at a markedly lower cost, according to new global data – although the total financial investment in renewables actually fell.

The greater “bang-for-buck” resulted from plummeting prices for solar and wind power and led to new power deals in countries including Denmark, Egypt, India, Mexico and the United Arab Emirates all being priced well below fossil fuel or nuclear options.

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The Clean Energy Finance Corporation is back in the spotlight after the Turnbull Government announced plans last week to lift a ban on the green bank investing in carbon capture and storage technologies.

A shark's nose is chemosensory only, and it doesn’t join up to the back of the throat like ours does. Flickr/Leszek Leszczynski, CC BY-SA

This is an article from Curious Kids, a new series for children. The Conversation is asking kids to send in questions they’d like an expert to answer. All questions are welcome – serious, weird or wacky!

Do sharks sneeze? – Desmond, aged 4, Perth.

When an animal sneezes, it’s their way of getting rid of annoying bits and pieces that have floated inside their nose and mouth.

While many animals, including humans, elephants, pandas and even seals, can sneeze, sharks unfortunately cannot. To be able to sneeze, an animal needs to move air (or water) from the lungs through its nose to the outside.

Sharks have two nostrils (called nares) below their snout that are used for smelling, but they don’t join up to the back of the throat like our nose does, so they can’t sneeze like we do. If something floats into their nares, they might try to shake it out.

Shark nostrils are called nares, but they do their breathing through their gills at the back of the mouth. Flickr/Lwp Kommunikáció, CC BY

Sharks breathe through the gills at the back of the mouth. Most of their “smelling” is done using a process called chemoreception, which allows sharks to sense tiny pieces of stuff, called molecules, hiding in the water as they pass through their nares.

Sharks can find and recognise these molecules – like parts of blood – that have been released from wounded animals or other prey, because their sense of smell is much better than ours.

Nares are loaded with powerful sensors. Once a shark has locked onto a smell, it can then work out where it came from by swimming towards it and moving its head slightly from side to side. It’s a bit like us following the smell of a freshly baked cake.

It’s an exaggeration to say a shark can smell a single drop of blood in the ocean. But they might be able to smell tiny drops of blood in the water from up to five kilometres away. Flickr/Elias Levy, CC BY

Legend has it that sharks can smell a single drop of blood in the ocean, but that’s an exaggeration. What they can do is detect blood at one part per million, which is similar to detecting tiny drops of blood in the water from up to five kilometres away!

While some have claimed to capture sightings of sharks sneezing on video, it just isn’t physically possible.

You might think this shark is sneezing, but trust me – it’s not.

The movement people confuse with sneezing is likely the animal’s attempt at getting rid of unwanted objects from their mouth or stomach area.

Sharks can actually make their stomach stick out of their mouth for brief moments to get rid of things they have eaten that they don’t like, such as tyres, licence plates, fish bones and fish hooks. This is called gastric eversion and it’s a very cool trick.

Gastric eversion is where a shark or other animal empties its stomach by making it stick out of their mouth.

Alternatively, a shark stretching its jaws, which they sometimes do after a meal, might be mistaken for a sneeze.

While sharks can’t sneeze like we do, they can smell and they have other great ways of getting rid of unwanted things from inside them.

Hello, curious kids! Have you got a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to us. They can:

* Email your question to curiouskids@theconversation.edu.au
* Tell us on Twitter by tagging @ConversationEDU with the hashtag #curiouskids, or
* Tell us on Facebook

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Please tell us your name, age, and which city you live in. You can send an audio recording of your question too, if you want. Send as many questions as you like! We won’t be able to answer every question but we will do our best.

Jane Williamson does 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.

The famous national park has prepared an environmental assessment to allow Verizon, T-Mobile, and AT&T to extend coverage, but some aren’t happy about it

They already paved Paradise and put up a parking lot. Now the famous site on the south slope of Mount Rainier National Park’s 14,410ft-tall volcano could be wired for cellular service.

The park, which encompasses 230,000 acres of the Cascades mountain range in Washington state, has prepared an environmental assessment for a proposal to allow Verizon, T-Mobile and AT&T to affix a wireless antenna to the park’s Jackson visitor center.

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Is it nearly the end of the road for coal? Shutterstock.com

Indian mining firm Adani yesterday announced that its board had approved plans to proceed with the controversial Carmichael coal mine in Queensland’s Galilee Basin.

But it is still far from clear whether Adani has actually obtained the finance to proceed with the A$16.5 billion project, or whether it has secured the necessary A$1.1 billion loan from the government’s Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility needed for the mine’s railway.

That hasn’t stopped the state government hailing the announcement as an economic win for Queensland, on the basis of job creation and for the signals it provides to potential investors in the region. But this amounts to little more than short-sighted politics. The government appears to be steadfastly ignoring the realities of the current energy landscape.

Let’s recap: coal mining is not economically viable within the constraints of a global carbon budget, while renewable energy production is rapidly expanding as the world moves to more sustainable investments. The result is that coal projects could become stranded assets, with price tags that may already exceed what would have been the costs of a timely implementation of climate action. Investors and lending institutions are shifting to sustainable projects that limit the risk of catastrophic environmental damage.

The people own the coal

The state government owns the coal resource, but it is a special type of ownership. This is “public resource” ownership, meaning that all decisions made by the state government to exploit it must be in the interest of the public as a whole.

Issuing resource titles that allow Adani to proceed with a vast coal mine – in defiance of the social, economic and environmental impacts of such a project within a carbon-constrained economy – arguably represents a dereliction of the state’s duty to act in the public interest.

It also ignores the fact that in order to have just a 50% chance of keeping global warming within 2℃, a key aim of the Paris climate agreement, 90% of Australia’s current coal reserves must stay in the ground. If the mine proceeds, it will contribute substantially to global warming and accelerate the destruction of one of the world’s greatest natural assets, the Great Barrier Reef. This could have huge knock-on effects for future tourism in the area, which generates A$6 billion a year.

The economics of the Adani coal mine simply do not make sense. While there may be limited short-term employment opportunities and royalty gains for the state should the project actually get financed, the longer-term projections are dire.

The thermal coal market is in decline. What’s more, the Carmichael mine will produce low-ranking thermal coal with a high ash content, making it carbon-intensive even by coal’s standards, and bringing with it considerable health risks.

With this in mind, it seems short-sighted to subsidise an anticipated production of between 25 million and 60 million tonnes of coal a year. Put simply, coal is not a sustainable resource for energy production.

This climate perspective informs the market. India, for example, cannot be relied upon as a guaranteed market for this low-quality coal. This is particularly evident in the recent unveiling of India’s new power plan, which calls for a dramatic increase in renewable energy production. This will have a deleterious impact on all Australian coal markets, and makes the decision to pursue low-quality coal reserves all the more untenable.

The banks know this. Westpac, ANZ, NAB, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, Barclays, Royal Bank of Scotland, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Citi, BNP Paribas, Société Générale and Crédit Agricole are among the domestic and international banks that have declined to fund the project, while the Commonwealth Bank has quit as the project’s financial adviser.

This is why the question of financing is so fraught. The major banks understand the fact that longer term, the Adani coal mine has no future. They are also concerned about the financial impact of stranded assets. Westpac, for example, made it very clear earlier this year that it aims to shift lending to sustainable economic models, and would increase lending to this sector to A$25 billion by 2030. It also made it clear that any funding for coal projects would henceforth be limited to existing coal projects with high-quality coal. Other major banks have adopted similar stances.

Where next?

So what happens now? The government may decide to fund Adani’s railway, but that does not necessarily mean the mine itself will ever actually move forward.

If and when Adani’s project does fall over, consideration should be given to whether the government should be held accountable for breaching public interest responsibilities in issuing the resource titles in the first place. Of course, this necessarily presumes the financing for the Adani mine will actually proceed.

To reiterate, there is no evidence that this has actually occurred. Getting government approval, and a green light from one’s own board, does not mean that Adani actually has the funding required to go ahead and dig the coal.

In the end, the real question is whether any lending institution will seriously take a risk on this vast and irresponsible project, which ignores both the safety of the Great Barrier Reef and the fundamentals of carbon-constrained economics.

Samantha Hepburn 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.

It might feel nippy, but look out for winter heatwaves. REUTERS/David Gray

The Bureau of Meteorology has issued its seasonal forecast for the winter, and it should be a warm one throughout southern Australia and the very tips of the Top End.

After a warm autumn, particularly in the east, this winter is forecast to be warmer and drier than usual – especially over the southern half of the continent.

Warmer-than-average conditions are likely for most of Australia. Bureau of Meteorology Not your everyday weather forecast

Seasonal forecasts are very different from your standard weather forecast for the day or week ahead.

Instead of giving exact temperatures or rainfall totals, the bureau provides probabilities of above or below average conditions. So if the bureau says there’s a 70% chance of above-average temperatures, that’s the same as saying there’s a 30% chance it will be below average.

These probabilities are estimated by looking at what’s going on in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, as they strongly influence Australia’s weather, and by running a set, or “ensemble”, of forecasts through the bureau’s seasonal forecast model.

A very different winter from last year

Looking back to last year, while most of Australia experienced quite a warm winter, it was also very wet. Nationally, it was the second-wettest winter on record, with the centre and the east of the continent copping the brunt of the rain. Last winter’s weather was driven by very warm seas in the east Indian Ocean, which meant a lot more moisture was available to deliver rainfall across the country.

Last winter was very wet for the east, although dry around Perth. Bureau of Meteorology

This year we are seeing roughly average temperatures in the Indian Ocean, and a slight El Niño in the Pacific. This increases the likelihood of warmer, drier weather for the winter as a whole.

Winter heatwaves on the way

So can we expect to keep the thick coats in the wardrobe and enjoy some winter warmth? Perhaps.

Of course, winter heatwaves aren’t going to bring 40℃ days to Melbourne and Sydney, but we could get warm spells and temperatures into the low twenties in Sydney or the high teens in Melbourne.

It’s also worth noting that the seasonal forecast only looks at whether we’re going to have temperatures above or below average. It’s harder to predict whether we will see bursts of heat, or if the weather will consistently be a little bit warmer than normal through much of the season.

We’ve seen an increase in heatwaves in late autumn and winter in Australia over the past few decades. Notably, in May 2014 Sydney and large areas of southeast Australia had much-warmer-than-average conditions. A study found that this heat event was made at least 20 times more likely by the human influence on the climate.

We’re also seeing trends towards less frequent cold conditions in winter, with frosts becoming much rarer over a substantial part of Australia. Most of Australia is also experiencing fewer cold days. These trends are in line with what we expect from climate change, and are projected to continue.

Australia’s experiencing fewer frosty nights than it used to. Bureau of Meteorology

While winter warmth can be pleasant for most of us, it can also cause plenty of problems. Warmer and drier winters can worsen drought – an effect we saw during the Millennium Drought in southeast Australia – by increasing evaporation and reducing soil moisture.

So while many of us in the south will gladly welcome a warm winter, it’s not good news for everyone. If warm and dry conditions were to persist into spring and summer – which is a distinct possibility with an El Niño watch in place – that would pose even more problems in terms of bushfire prevention, among other hazards.

Andrew King receives funding from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science.

Members of environmental organisations state their case. Plus Sylvia Milner decries the Conservatives’ record on fracking

As the Trump administration prepares to withdraw the US from the Paris agreement, we believe the UK must use its trade policy to reaffirm and strengthen a globally coordinated response to climate change – one of the greatest challenges humanity has ever faced. As such, we call on the next UK government to:

• Require ratification of the Paris agreement and a commitment to its goal of avoiding more than 1.5 degrees of warming as a precondition for entering into trade and investment agreements with the UK. 

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Campaigners in call to action as it emerges EU does not intend to make extra cuts to account for US withdrawal from Paris deal

European leaders have been urged to scale up their efforts to tackle climate change as it emerged the EU does not intend to make extra emissions’ cuts to fill the gap left by the withdrawal of the US from the Paris agreement.

At a summit with China in Brussels last week, the EU responded to the decision by Donald Trump to pull out of the historic 2015 pact by vowing to take on a leadership role in the fight to halt global warming.

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Real Junk Food Project co-founder summoned to formal hearing after trading standards inspection at Leeds premises

A charity that campaigns against food waste may face prosecution after trading standards found produce that was past its use-by date at one of its warehouses.

The Real Junk Food Project – which has 127 affiliated cafes worldwide – aims to combat food waste by collecting produce that would otherwise be thrown away and preparing it for the general public.

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Elliott D Woods spent time in Phillips County in northern Montana, where public land is a source of life to which ranchers are intimately connected. If the plan to transfer lands to the states succeeds, it will mean a radical restructuring of the economy and the culture of the west

• In Montana, land transfer threatens the rancher’s way of life

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Ranchers in the west have been struggling for decades. Now a new threat looms: public land might be taken away from them

• Cows, corrals and community: ranching in Montana – in pictures

If you want to appreciate the prairie landscape that inspired President Theodore Roosevelt to set aside 230 million acres as national land, you have to pull off the interstate somewhere in the Dakotas, or in the eastern third of Montana, Wyoming, or Colorado. Follow a dirt road for a few miles, roll down your windows, and shut off your engine. Do this almost any time of day, preferably in springtime. Above and below ground, the prairies are humming with life: birds, rodents, snakes, pronghorn, badgers and coyotes, rioting amid a landscape of grass and sagebrush.

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A small but vocal cohort is leading efforts to transfer federal land to the states. Is your congressional representative on the list?

The Trump administration has so far attempted to shrink the federal government’s role in healthcare, environmental protection – and even meals on wheels. Some Republicans now see another area ripe for giveaway: public lands.

During the Obama administration, Republicans made numerous attempts to open up federal lands for development or cede control of areas to the states. This push was largely made by representatives from a couple of western states, where the federal government manages roughly half of all land.

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The rangers, who are police reservists, were killed while trying to recover cattle stolen by nomadic herders

Two game rangers have been shot dead in Kenya’s restive north while on a mission to recover stolen cattle.

For the last year, Laikipia, one of Kenya’s most important wildlife regions, has been the scene of vicious farm invasions and battles between private ranch owners and communities bordering them.

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Current and former staff say projects that mention climate change have been ‘de-emphasized and halted’ as EPA tears up key planks of emissions-lowering agenda

Current and former Environmental Protection Agency employees have described how work on climate change is grinding to a halt at the agency, with programs being scrapped and fears that staff may be reassigned away from climate-related tasks.

The Trump administration is tearing up key planks of Barack Obama’s emissions-lowering agenda, with the president withdrawing the US from the Paris climate agreement last week and tasking the EPA with rewriting the Clean Power Plan, which aims to curb greenhouse gases from coal-fired power plants.

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For too long, liberals have been treating climate change as a third or fourth tier issue. As the US exits the Paris Climate Accord, it’s time for liberals to re-evaluate an issue that subsumes all others.

On Thursday when the announcement hit that Trump was taking America out of the Paris Climate Accord, my social media feed predictably blew up. As an environmental journalist with a lot of left-leaning friends, you can imagine what it looked like: anger, frustration, shock, sadness, another outrage from the world’s most outrageous leader. All of a sudden every one I knew was talking about climate change; I’ll admit it was a nice change of pace, but after nearly ten years of covering climate change I also knew it would be fleeting.

Liberals have been the champions of climate action for decades, but they’ve largely championed it as an after thought, something that comes near the end of a long to-do list, like the brussels sprouts you conveniently forget to pick up at the grocery store (polling bears this out). When I bring up climate change during chats with left-leaning friends, I often get that pause – that suspended moment – when I can see someone in the group look askance. I can see what they’re thinking, “Again, Jeremy, with the climate change?”

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The state, hit hard by global warming-intensified flooding, has elected numerous climate-denying politicians

I was debating this article. Should I write about the news that just occurred, or the news that will occur soon? I chose the past event – flooding in Missouri, USA. I will save the soon-to-collapse Larsen C Ice Shelf in Antarctica for my next article.

It’s sad, but true, that there are mounting ironies around Trump’s scientific ignorance on climate change and his ditching of the Paris Accord to reduce global warming. Scientists know the Earth is warming and that humans are the cause. One consequence of the warming is that weather is becoming more extreme. This means we are getting more extreme storms, including rain and floods. As our nation and the world suffers from the extreme weather, we can reflect on how things could have been different had our politicians heeded the warnings.

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Scientists spend decades hunting Earth's twin only to turn up the most inhospitable world imaginable.