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The stem is evidence, the thing that reminds you the fruit once weighed down a branch in a heavy orchard

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“My father liked his fruit very ripe, so whenever one of us came across an overripe pear we gave it to him,” Natalia Ginzburg writes in The Family Lexicon. “‘Ah, so you give me your rotten pears! What real jackasses you are!’ he’d say with a hearty laugh that reverberated through the apartment, then he’d eat the pear in two bites.”

You can feel it: the almost alcoholic impression a very ripe pear leaves somewhere between your throat and your lungs, more like a smell than a taste. It’s the thing that makes a pear drop a pear drop. It’s the thing that makes it feel like you breathed the pear in, that a moment ago it was a piece of fruit in a dark and golden painting, then it was gone.

Time will go by the way it did
before history, pure and unnoticed,
a mystery that arose between the sun and moon
before there was a word
for dawn or noon or midnight,

before there were names for the earth’s
uncountable things,
when fruit hung anonymously
from scattered groves of trees,
light on the smooth green side,
shadow on the other.

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Company rebuts claims by scientists that ‘uncontrolled and unscientific’ practices highlight dangers of going ahead with seabed mining

Video footage from a deep-sea mining test, showing sediment discharging into the ocean, has raised fresh questions about the largely untested nature of the industry, and the possible harms it could do to ecosystems as companies push to begin full-scale exploration of the ocean floor as early as this year.

The Metals Company (TMC), a Canadian mining firm that is one of the leading industry players, spent September to November of last year testing its underwater extraction vehicle in the Clarion Clipperton Fracture Zone, a section of the Pacific Ocean between Mexico and Hawaii.

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EUA prices continued to strengthen by as much as 3% on Monday morning, with an extension of the recent short squeeze and supportive fundamentals driving prices back above €95.

Tony Abbott joins board of UK-based think tank that attacks net zero and other climate and clean energy policies.

The post “We need more science:” Tony Abbott joins board of climate denial think tank appeared first on RenewEconomy.

China is considering introducing the opportunity to let coal-fired power plants covered by the national emissions trading scheme borrow permits from future years in order to ease the scheme’s short term cost impacts, according to analysts.

Pollution from wood stoves, popular among middle classes, missed from monitoring which focuses on roads but is just as if not more harmful

A sharp rise in wood burning in urban areas could be bringing harmful pollution to greater numbers of people, and shifting the pattern of pollution from poorer to more affluent areas, one of the UK’s leading air pollution experts has warned.

Currently, air pollution monitoring focuses on busy roads, which have been the main hotspots for fine particulate matter (known as PM2.5) and other air pollutants, largely from diesel vehicles.

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The governments of Canada and British Columbia along with 15 First Nations have released a blueprint for setting up a network of marine protected areas (MPAs) covering a third of the Northern Shelf Bioregion, as Pew Charitable Trusts published a mapping tool to help plan such MPA networks in international waters.

Fishing has been central to life on Holy Island in Northumberland for centuries. Now, despite intense opposition, a proposed highly protected marine area – which would effectively kill off local industry – threatens the livelihoods of the island’s 15 fishing families

• Photographs by Peter Summers/Getty Images

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Scientists urge people to stop ‘spraying gardens with poison’ and adopt wildlife-friendly practices

Gardeners who use pesticides are contributing to the decline of British songbirds, a study suggests.

Scientists have urged people to stop “spraying their gardens with poison” in order to halt bird decline and adopt instead wildlife-friendly practices.

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Western Australia is having a spot of bother from its fossil fuel generators, including coal shortages that could take a plant offline in coming months.

The post WA fossil fuel woes continue, as coal shortages prompt AEMO warnings appeared first on RenewEconomy.

NSW Labor denies claims from NSW energy minister that it will tear up the state's Electricity Infrastructure Roadmap if it wins the election in March.

The post NSW Labor says it will not “rip up” renewable roadmap, but accelerate it instead appeared first on RenewEconomy.

The Blue Action Fund, backed by four European governments, will channel €20 million to projects that support ecologically representative and well-connected systems of marine protected areas (MPAs) in the Asia-Pacific region, it announced over the weekend.

Asia oil giant buys into Australian solar market in deal that gives it a large operating portfolio and a bigger pipeline of projects.

The post Asia oil giant snaps up big Australian solar portfolio at top of the market appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Genex looks to fast track 1.6GW solar project in Queensland as it completes foundations to its first battery storage facility.

The post Genex to fast-track 1.6GW solar project as foundations complete for first big battery appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Essential Energy teams with AGL to install a 2MWh battery in the rooftop solar-heavy Port Macquarie region.

The post NSW network joins rush to batteries to soak up solar, save on poles and wires appeared first on RenewEconomy.

New report argues fuel tax credits should be removed for on-road users, and halved for off-road users, to drive emissions reductions and save billions.

The post Fuel tax exemptions make no sense – for the climate or the economy appeared first on RenewEconomy.

A New Zealand carbon trader has launched a parliamentary petition demanding the country’s House of Representatives urge the government to implement the ETS price settings recommended by the Climate Change Commission (CCC).

The poles are not known for being noisy but a project reveals their weird and wonderful sounds.

In one finding, fire authorities chose to save a few farm sheds over 5,000 hectares of national park. Clearly, our fire management needs a reset. Libby Rumpff, Senior Research Fellow, The University of Melbourne Brendan Wintle, Professor in Conservation Science, School of Ecosystem and Forest Science, The University of Melbourne John Woinarski, Professor (conservation biology), Charles Darwin University Sarah Legge, Professor, Australian National University Stephen van Leeuwen, Indigenous Chair of Biodiversity & Environmental Science, Curtin University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.