The Guardian

MPs also shown polling that claims stopping the controversial coalmine will not necessarily cost Queensland seats

Federal Labor MPs have been given new legal advice arguing there is a valid pathway to revoke the environmental approvals for the controversial Adani coal project, and a summary of polling showing stopping the project would not necessarily cost seats in central Queensland.

Guardian Australia has seen a brief for Labor MPs prepared by the Stop Adani campaign, which quotes legal advice from Neil Williams SC, a specialist in environmental and planning law, arguing “there is evidence to support revocation of Adani’s approval under section 145 of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, including significant impacts on water resources that were not assessed when the mine was approved”.

Call the emissions reduction fund a ‘climate solutions’ fund if you like, but it doesn’t mean it is

Let’s start with the good news. Scott Morrison is talking constructively about climate change because he is intelligent enough to understand that failing to do that renders the Coalition unelectable in parts of the country, and with parts of its own base.

Compared with where we’ve been, a Liberal prime minister standing up at a podium, accepting the science of climate change and making the case for action, is progress.

Exclusive: miner Gold Fields to get $1m from Coalition fund for gas power plant for its Western Australian mine

The Morrison government’s emissions reduction fund – rebadged as a “climate solutions” policy and to be boosted with an extra $2bn – is being used to help one of the world’s biggest gold miners pay for a fossil fuel power plant the company concedes it would have built anyway.

Fund opponents say it is the latest evidence that design flaws in the scheme are leading to taxpayers’ money being wasted on projects that are commercially viable even without public support. In some cases, the climate funding is going to new fossil fuel projects on the grounds that they are cleaner than the dirty projects they replace.

Exclusive: climate change linked to ‘astonishing’ drop in bogong moth numbers, the key food source for possums while breeding

Numbers of unique Australian moths that migrate in their billions to alpine areas have crashed, ecologists say, putting extra pressure on the endangered mountain pygmy possum.

Scientists believe the “astonishing” drop in bogong moth numbers is linked to climate change and recent droughts in areas where the moths breed.

Evidence collected by Friends of the Earth allege estates have continued practice despite voluntary commitments to stop

An official watchdog is investigating five grouse-shooting estates for allegedly damaging the environment in a practice that they had pledged to stop.

Natural England is looking into allegations that the estates have repeatedly burned heather on their land to maximise the number of grouse for shooting. The watchdog launched its investigation after being passed evidence in the form of eyewitness accounts that the environmental group Friends of the Earth had collected.

Former UN secretary-general says country must live up to Theresa May’s commitment

• Stop funding climate change, says Ban Ki-moon
  

Ban Ki-moon has urged Britain to stop funding fossil fuel projects overseas, in what he said would mark a test of Theresa May’s commitment to act on climate change.

The former UN secretary general said he was deeply concerned that the UK’s export credit agency had provided billions of pounds in recent years to support businesses involved in oil and gas schemes around the world.

They must survive government culls, gamekeepers, poisoning, persecution and increasingly busy roads but, in modern times at least, Britain’s carnivores have never had it so good: badger, otter, pine marten, polecat, stoat and weasel populations have “markedly improved” since the 1960s, according to a new study.

The otter, polecat and pine marten have bounced back from the brink of extinction, and the country’s only carnivorous mammal now in danger of being wiped out is the wildcat, with the dwindling Scottish populations hit by hybridisation with domestic and feral cats.

New techniques will help customs officers identify and seize wood that came from endangered species

The wooden blinds that lie crumpled in Peter Gasson’s laboratory in Kew Gardens are chipped and forlorn-looking. Their manufacturers had claimed they were made of pine but customs officers were wary. And their suspicions were well-founded. Gasson, Kew’s research leader on wood and timber, found the blinds were not made of pine but ramin.

“All ramin trees, which grow in south-east Asia, are endangered and trade in their wood is illegal,” said Gasson. “On this occasion, we got lucky and stopped people profiting from this trade.”

Shadow environment minister sceptical whether law followed on approvals for coal project

Tony Burke says he has always been sceptical about whether the law has been followed in relation to previous environmental approvals for the controversial Adani coal project in Queensland.

But the shadow environment minister argues that he can’t telegraph a firm disposition about what he might do about the approvals in the future without making a prejudgment that could render any subsequent decision unlawful.

From Gucci’s power suiting to a gameshow that inspired Jeremy Scott for this season’s runway for Moschino, Jo Jones picks her 10 highlights from the autumn/winter 2019 shows

Hobbyists say Jackson Oswalt of Tennessee is youngest person to achieve fusion

An American 14-year-old has reportedly become the youngest known person in the world to create a successful nuclear reaction.

The Open Source Fusor Research Consortium, a hobbyist group, has recognised the achievement by Jackson Oswalt, from Memphis, Tennessee, when he was aged 12 in January 2018.

Traffic blocked at Department for Education during call for national curriculum changes

More than 100 teachers, academics and students have blocked traffic and staged mock climate classes outside the Department for Education in a protest against the underplaying of environmental problems in the national curriculum.

The demonstrators – who carried Teach the Truth, Rebel for Life and Climate: More Important Than Brexit banners – urged the government to make the climate and ecological crisis an educational priority.

Pangolins, a mountain lion and a sad good-bye to Papua New Guinea’s Bramble Cay melomys

Exclusive: birds and eggs from 70 species, some rare, have been licensed for destruction

The government’s conservation watchdog has issued licences to destroy 170,000 wild birds, eggs and nests, including rare and declining species such as curlews and swifts, in the past five years.

Natural England has given permission to kill birds of more than 70 species, or have their nests and eggs destroyed. These include peregrine falcons, barn owls, buzzards and red kites, alongside garden favourites such as robins, blackbirds and blue tits. A licence was even issued to destroy a wrens’ nest to “preserve public safety” in South Yorkshire.

A cold, wet March could prove problematic for animals now out of hibernation

• Early spring: share your photographs and stories

Spring is arriving early with swallows, frogspawn and unexpected perfume as temperatures soar up to 20C above this time last year when Britain was blasted by the “beast from the east”.

Rooks are nesting, ladybirds are mating and dozens of migratory swallows have been spotted along the south-west coast – more than a month ahead of their normal arrival.

We want your help documenting the situation as record temperatures bring early signs of spring across Europe

• Naturalists concerned for early-emerging spring species in UK

After one of the hottest summers ever in 2018 and a mild winter across much of Europe, record temperatures are suggesting spring is once more beginning earlier than usual.

Swallows and house martins have been spotted more than a month earlier than usual and temperatures are up to 20C higher than this time last year. We’re looking for your help documenting signs of the situation where you are, and would like to see your pictures and hear about what you are seeing as well as how you feel about it.

Informed students are prompting adults to act on the issue

I draw three circles on the board as my class watches.

“So, what might this gas be?”

In part two of our series, indigenous Siona people claim their health is being affected by apparent contamination of river

María Isaura Cuaran, an indigenous Siona woman, is displaying a rash that has appeared at the base of her neck. It is barely visible, but there nonetheless. Pulling her turquoise top off her left shoulder and tugging down on her bead necklace, Cuaran talks about “the company” and how, she alleges, it has affected the local river.

“Stomach problems, coughing, fever, vomiting, diarrhoea, welts, little spots, little blotches, general malaise …”

National cycle crime strategy set to launch after survey finds 50% of victims feel police don’t take the offence seriously

For many people a bicycle is the only transport they can afford and the only exercise they get. These people are often among society’s most vulnerable, and the impact of the loss of their bike can be devastating. So why is cycle theft so often seen as a minor crime?

According to the police, 96,210 bikes were stolen in 2018, and about one in 50 bicycle-owning households are victims of cycle theft each year, but it’s a crime disproportionately visited on the young and the poor.

Plants, insects and organisms crucial to food production in steep decline, says UN

The world’s capacity to produce food is being undermined by humanity’s failure to protect biodiversity, according to the first UN study of the plants, animals and micro-organisms that help to put meals on our plates.

The stark warning was issued by the Food and Agriculture Organisation after scientists found evidence the natural support systems that underpin the human diet are deteriorating around the world as farms, cities and factories gobble up land and pump out chemicals.