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Water supplies in western US will become more precarious amid warming climate

Los Angeles should not exist. The explorer John Wesley Powell warned the US Congress 140 years ago that the American west was a harsh arid land and settlements should be limited to conserve scarce water supplies. The politicians rejected his advice and launched a massive programme of dam and canal construction for irrigation and settlements.

In a gruelling expedition across North America, Powell had seen a dramatic transition from the lush green prairies in the east to the dry lands of the west, and the frontier of this transition was the 100th meridian, an invisible line of longitude passing north-south through North America.

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The Murray-Darling Basin Plan has been politically fraught and mired in scandal. But environmental monitoring suggests that the health of the rivers is indeed improving - even if it will take decades. Angus Webb, Senior Lecturer and quantitative ecologist, University of Melbourne Darren Ryder, Professor of Aquatic Ecology and Restoration, University of New England Fiona Dyer, Associate professor, University of Canberra Michael Stewardson, Environmental Hydrology and Water Resources, Melbourne School of Engineering, University of Melbourne Mike Grace, Associate Professor, Monash University Nick Bond, Professor, La Trobe University Paul Frazier, Adjunct Senior Lecturer, University of New England Qifeng Ye, Principal Scientist, Inland Waters and Catchment Ecology Program Rick Stoffels, Senior Scientist, CSIRO Robyn J Watts, Professor of Ecology, Charles Sturt University Samantha Capon, Research Fellow in Ecology, Griffith University Skye Wassens, Associate Professor in Ecology, Charles Sturt University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

A combination of existing provincial carbon pricing schemes along with the federal ‘backstop’ would significantly reduce Canada's GHG emissions through 2022 while slowing GDP growth less than recent estimates, according to a new report.

Tree-felling helped trigger ‘hidden collapse’ of mountain ash forests, ecologists say

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Melbourne’s water supply is at risk because decades of logging and forest loss from large bushfires has triggered the imminent collapse of the mountain ash forests in Victoria’s central highlands, ecologists have said.

The Victorian government was warned of the likelihood of ecosystem collapse by Australian National University researches in 2015. New research led by Prof David Lindenmayer of ANU, published in PNAS journal on Tuesday, has found the ecosystem has already begun to undergo a “hidden collapse”.

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Lacking buyers for their carbon credits, African nations are appealing to the Green Climate Fund (GCF) and other institutions to finance their carbon-cutting activities as Paris Agreement rulebook talks drag on.

EU carbon prices barely budged on Monday in trade muted by tomorrow's European public holiday as observers grew wary over whether the market could sustain recent gains with the annual compliance season now over.

A California-based consultant has rejoined IETA to work on the emissions trading association’s growing US and international research efforts.

Plan for fund combining taxpayers’ cash and private investment significantly behind schedule, it has emerged

A £400m government plan to build electric car charging points looks likely to be significantly delayed, in a blow to car manufacturers and efforts to tackle air pollution in UK cities.

The Treasury pledged last year to support the switch to zero-emission vehicles with a £400m fund for charging infrastructure. Half of the money was to come from the taxpayer, with the rest matched by the private sector, according to an announcement in the autumn budget.

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The share of German carbon allowances bought by big emitters rose for a second straight month in March, with operators taking more than half of the 17.44 million sold.

We want to hear from those who have seen tree felling along tracks and what they think its affect may be on the environment and wildlife

One witness called tree cutting along a track near him as “total mass destruction” as it was revealed that Network Rail launched a secretive felling operation putting millions of trees at risk.

Ray Walton, who saw hundreds of trees being chopped down along the length of track between Christchurch and Bournemouth said: “These trees were mature 30-foot-high trees which have been there for 50 years in some cases and never caused a problem. This went far beyond reasonable management of the trees.”

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The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific concepts

More than 42,000 deer are killed in collisions on the UK’s roads every year, according to the AA. But where? I’ve never seen a deer near a road.

Simon Harrison

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British and American scientists will assess the stability of one of Antarctica's biggest ice streams.

The Republican Party values polluter wealth over public health

Like Donald Trump and the rest of his administration, Scott Pruitt has been caught up in so many scandals that it becomes impossible to focus on any single act of corruption. It’s difficult to focus on the damage Pruitt is doing to the environment and public health when seemingly every day there’s a new scandal related to his illegal $43,000 phone booth, or use of Safe Water Drinking Act funds to give two staffers a total of $85,000 in raises (and lying about it), or his sweetheart deal on a condo rental from a lobbyist’s wife (and lying about having met with that lobbyist), or wasting taxpayer funds on first class air travel and military jets, and a nearly $3m per year security detail, and bulletproof car seat covers, and a bulletproof desk, and so on.

Number of federal investigations into Scott Pruitt has now risen to 11. Reps. Beyer & Lieu say EPA inspector general will take up an inquiry into the $50-a-night condo rental from the wife of an energy lobbyist.

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British and US scientists are to examine the melting Thwaites glacier responsible for 4% rise in sea levels

British and US scientists are to collaborate on a £20m project to examine the Thwaites glacier in west Antarctica, a major glacier that drains an area about the size of the UK.

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As sea levels rise, it is likely that storm surges, cyclones and floods will become more frequent, and more extreme. But how likely is that? And what can be done to prevent the damage?

Australia’s Clean Energy Regulator last week issued over 850,000 carbon credits, some three times more than average, while an analyst on Monday predicted the domestic offset market could reach 62 million tonnes of CO2e per year by 2030.

New Zealand carbon allowances on Monday closed just 5 cents below their all-time high as last week’s Productivity Commission report was seen bullish by some major market participants.

The Climate Change Authority, an independent advisory body to the government, has recommended Australia should establish a new offset type for land-based carbon cuts that also provide additional benefits for the agriculture sector.

Lab-grown meat and food-tech startups in the US are showing that applying science to what we eat can save the world and make money

“If you make food that tastes really good, you win,” says Josh Tetrick, with a smile. And winning is crucial, he says, with his company Just in the vanguard of a new sector with an ambitious mission: to use cutting-edge technologies to create food that will take down the meat and dairy industries.

The scope is huge: growing meat in labs, producing creamy scrambled “eggs” from mung beans, or making fish that has never swum in water, or cow’s milk brewed from yeast. The drive is to lessen the colossal environmental damage wrought by industrial farming, from its vast carbon emissions to water pollution and disease.

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What caused the demise of the Dwarf Emu in Australia?