The Guardian

Duncansby Head, John O’Groats As the wind rises the timbre alters and I struggle to place it – the howling of wolves, infants wailing, dissonant chords on a pipe organ?

At the far north-eastern corner of the British mainland the land rises up from the sea like cake from a tin: edges are clean and sharp, layers of sediment cut through the red sandstone like jam.

The sun is out, the air is still, and the residents are busy making their preparations for winter in this rare break in the weather.

Wangan and Jagalingou opponents, who say project would override native title on most of their land, dispute Queensland mining minister’s approval of leases

Traditional owners have launched a fresh legal challenge to Adani’s proposed Carmichael mine, declaring they would go all the way to the high court to stand as the last “line of defence” against the contentious project.

Wangan and Jagalingou opponents of the mine on Tuesday went to the Queensland court of appeal to dispute the state mining minister’s approval of Adani’s mining leases.

Prime minister says Josh Frydenberg has to explain himself in wake of climate change policy backdown

Malcolm Turnbull has said he will not impose a carbon tax or an emissions trading scheme.

The prime minister said he would not do anything that increased electricity costs for consumers, especially when households were struggling to pay their bills.

‘Almost unprecedented’ event attributed to warm temperatures and winds, with some areas more than 20C (36F) warmer than usual

Both the Arctic and Antarctic experienced record lows in sea ice extent in November, with scientists astonished to see Arctic ice actually retreating at a time when the region enters the cold darkness of winter.

Related: The fate of Arctic sea ice – Science Weekly podcast

Progressive thinktank wants to know whether company will pay full coal royalties, full company tax rate and create jobs it claims

The progressive thinktank the Australia Institute is stepping up its campaign against the controversial Adani Carmichael mine proposal, publishing an open letter to Malcolm Turnbull questioning the project.

The questions being posed via a full-page advertisement in the Australian Financial Review on Wednesday include whether the Adani mine, if it proceeds, will pay full coal royalties to the Queensland government, or whether the project has been granted a royalty holiday.

Alice Bell is right that we need to talk about climate change (Opinion, 6 December). However, when we do, people often say there is no point in cutting one’s own emissions (by not flying, for example) because hardly anyone else is; and they say there is no point in the UK doing anything, because other countries aren’t. Sadly, people in other countries are probably using the same arguments and so, in a self-fulfilling way, it could be argued that they are all correct. Certainly there is no evidence that nations or individuals are actually going to make the changes needed to cut greenhouse gas emissions adequately, whatever pledges may have been made at international conferences.

Clearly, we need a new approach: to invest in a combination of carbon scrubbing, geoengineering, third-way solutions, forest protection and reforestation. These can be funded by an international financial transactions tax, and they don’t involve lifestyle changes people won’t accept. We need to start now.
Richard Mountford
Hildenborough, Kent

Internet giant says renewable energy is increasingly lowest cost option and it will not rule out investing in nuclear power

Google’s data centres and the offices for its 60,000 staff will be powered entirely by renewable energy from next year, in what the company has called a “landmark moment”.

The internet giant is already the world’s biggest corporate buyer of renewable electricity, last year buying 44% of its power from wind and solar farms. Now it will be 100%, and an executive said it would not rule out investing in nuclear power in the future, too.

A collection of zoological wonders from November 2016, featuring mobbing hyenas, speeding bats and crab power

As global temperatures rise, extreme downpours will increase putting huge strains on infrastructure and agriculture, finds climate study

When the skies open up and deluge an area, the results can be catastrophic, with roads washed out and homes destroyed by the resulting flash floods. Such extreme downpours are already occurring more often across the US, but a new study finds that as global temperatures rise, storms could dump considerably more rain and skyrocket in frequency.

The study, in the journal Nature Climate Change, suggests that storms that now occur about once a season could happen five times a season by the century’s end, a 400% increase.

Firefighters recover two cars from a sinkhole in Texas. An off-duty sheriff’s deputy died and two other people were hurt when two vehicles plunged into the water-filled sinkhole in San Antonio on Sunday. It appeared after a sewer line ruptured during heavy rain

• One dead after Texas sinkhole swallows two cars
  

England fells more trees than it plants and government must keep to its targets to evade deforestation, say forestry groups

Every year Brazil, Congo and other developing countries are lambasted by environmentalists and western politicians for deforestation at a time when trees are needed to counter climate change and prevent flooding.

Now two prestigious organisations are warning that England may have tipped into deforestation, with more trees being cut down than planted for the first time in possibly 40 years.

Conspiracy websites and hyperpartisan media outlets are building huge online audiences who want to hear climate change is a hoax

Back in December 2015, Donald Trump gave a 30-minute live interview to the website Infowars.com and its combustible leader, Alex Jones.

“Your reputation is amazing and I will not let you down,” said Trump, who, at the time, was leading in most polls for the Republican presidential nomination.

Claxton, Norfolk They rose and fell, swaying as if one organism were breathing slowly, and as they approached they never made sound

I saw the goose skein as a tentative line in a southern blue sky and, since it was arrowed straight towards me, I rested arms and binoculars on a gate to ease the muscle ache.

One, two minutes must have passed as the skein slowly grew, before it occurred to me that large birds in flight never rush. The wing beats are steady, solemn, self-reliant. I remember once in eastern Turkey watching a line of flamingos like this. There is an almost identical length of neck and leg fore and aft of those pink flamingo wings and, such was their lack of progress, it was a good five minutes before I could even work out in which direction they flew.

Analysts says $1bn loan proposal shows lack of financier interest and Adani may not meet investment criteria due to position that public funding ‘not critical’

Doubts have emerged over the eligibility of Adani’s rail link for public funding as the company pushes ahead with plans for the controversial Carmichael coal project with a promise of 600 jobs at a new operational headquarters in Townsville.

The Queensland premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, said “you can’t get the smile off my face” when commenting on the news of the potential jobs boost in a television interview.

The government hopes its latest reports will keep the reef off Unesco’s world heritage in-danger list. But protecting the reef for future generations involves addressing the threat posed by climate change

At first glance, the progress reports on the Great Barrier Reef released last week by the Australian and Queensland governments might seem impressive.

The update on the Reef 2050 Plan suggests that 135 of the plan’s 151 actions are either complete or on track.

Vikings who settled in the north of England have handed down more than their names for landscape features

Thirty years ago farmers in the Yorkshire Dales never wore gloves even when the temperature was well below zero and there was snow on the ground. Asked if their hands felt cold one replied: “Aye a little, but only twice a day.

“I feel it first thing in the morning when I first go out, but after a few minutes my fingers go numb, like, and then I don’t feel them again until I finish my evening work and go inside the house. Then they sting a bit as they warm up again.”

An expert on Australian native species says birds can have empathy, grieve after the death of a partner and form long-term friendships

It is generally quite well-known that kookaburras live in family groups: a bonded male and female, plus a retainer of their offspring. Numbers matter in kookaburra society because a neighbouring tribe may have its eye firmly on the expansion of territory – and may invade a smaller group.

This means the injury and eventual death of one bird – most crucially of one of the parent birds – can have disastrous effects for the remaining group. They could be evicted from their home, which is likely to lead to their death.

Poll commissioned by the Australia Institute finds 41% oppose funding the link between the coalmine and port in north Queensland while 33% support it

More Australians oppose the idea of funding infrastructure for the Carmichael coalmine than support it, although the reverse is true in Queensland, a new poll has found.

The Research Now poll commissioned by the Australia Institute, released on Tuesday, found that 41% opposed funding construction of infrastructure to help the Adani coalmine, compared with 26% who supported it and 33% who were undecided.

Emissions intensity scheme is the least costly way of reducing greenhouse gases, Energy Networks Australia and CSIRO say

Australia’s electricity and gas transmission industry is calling on the Turnbull government to implement a form of carbon trading in the national electricity market by 2022 and review the scope for economy-wide carbon pricing by 2027.

Energy Networks Australia warns in a new report examining how to achieve zero net carbon emissions by 2050 that policy stability and regulatory certainty are the key to delivering lower power prices and reliable electricity supply.

Academic decries what he describes as yet another bait-and-switch to reduce overall spending on conservation in Australia

Scrapping Australia’s “green army” without restoring Landcare funding to pre-2014 levels would further weaken community conservation efforts, experts have said.

The Turnbull government is reportedly set to abolish the derided environmental program – to the dismay of its creator and greatest champion, the former prime minister Tony Abbott.