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Scientists believe they have established the identity of a "missing element" in the Earth's core.

Critically Endangered chimpanzees in the Ivory Coast craft extra-absorbent drinking sticks, remote cameras reveal.

Waste and recycling advisory body says 4.4m tonnes of household food waste thrown away in 2015 could have been eaten

UK households binned £13bn worth of food in 2015 that could have been eaten, according to new figures which suggest that progress in reducing the national food waste mountain has stalled.

Despite concerted efforts to reduce food waste through the entire supply chain, a new national update from the waste and recycling advisory body Wrap revealed that an estimated 7.3m tonnes of household food waste was thrown away in 2015 – up from 7m tonnes in 2012.

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As public health researchers we noted your article on fracking (Friends of the Earth ticked off over claims in anti-fracking leaflet, 4 January) and wish to highlight the following: fracking operations involve pumping millions of litres of water containing fracking fluids underground and a small percentage of wastewater contains returned fracking fluids. Estimates vary depending on geological conditions but recent research suggests typically 4-8%. It is well established in peer-reviewed studies and government reports that fracturing fluids and wastewater have contaminated ground and surface waters.

An early peer-reviewed study on chemicals in fracking fluids found 25% could cause cancer and mutations, 37% could affect the endocrine system, 40-50% could affect the brain/nervous system, kidneys, immune system and cardiovascular systems. More recent studies support these findings, including a systematic evaluation that examined 240 fracking substances and found evidence suggesting 43% were linked to reproductive toxicity and 40% to developmental toxicity.

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In the last six years, some 140 million people have been forced to move because of climate-related disasters (Mongolian herders fly steppe blighted by climate extremes and social change, 5 January). Climate change is driving long-term environmental damage and sudden catastrophes, presenting a global long-term threat to human security. According to the UN, by mid-century, one in 30 people could be displaced, many as a result of climate change. Existing global inequalities are exacerbated by the injustice of climate change which severely affects the poorest and most vulnerable, those who have contributed least to the climate crisis. Although climate change and enforced migration are increasingly linked, those displaced have no legal standing under existing international refugee and asylum law.

Record-breaking increases in global temperature mask the unequal impact of planetary warming. Temperature increases in Mongolia have risen by more than double the global average over the past century. Elsewhere, in Somalia, Darfur, Syria and across sub-Saharan Africa, the chronic effects of drought, water scarcity and agricultural crises in rural areas no longer able to sustain their peoples have driven hundreds of thousands of migrants into cities and across borders. Safe haven is provided overwhelmingly by other poor countries, whilst richer countries respond by building walls and fences and a political debate that is toxic and often racist.

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Social media might help you navigate the confusing world of sustainability. ra2studio/shutterstock.com

Facebook has always been controversial, with many users worrying about how the information they post might be used. Lately, the social media behemoth has also been criticised for facilitating the spread of fake news.

But over the past 18 months I have learned that the technology of Facebook groups offers an effective way for people to collaborate on common interests – in my case, on enhancing the sustainability of our homes and lifestyles.

As part of a research project, I created a public Facebook group where members initially discussed and decoded a particularly sophisticated space-heating heat pump (otherwise known on mainland Australia as a reverse-cycle air conditioner). Predictably, our discussions quickly expanded to include other aspects of home economics, aesthetics, comfort and sustainability.

Today the group is called My Efficient Electric Home. Membership has doubled over the past two months. It now includes more than 550 people, from every state and territory of Australia as well as New Zealand and other countries.

It’s global, but it can quickly become local. The other day a member living near Cairns, Queensland, posed some questions about solar panels and tropical swimming pools. Shortly thereafter another member, also from around Cairns, chimed in with (hopefully!) the answer.

My efficient electric home

Our stated purpose is for group members to discuss methods of space heating, water heating and cooking using electricity rather than fossil gas or wood. Our focus on electricity recognises a future in which renewable energy is the fuel of choice, whether it is sourced from a central or neighbourhood grid, or generated and stored at home.

The Electric Home of the Future, as envisaged in the past. Popular Mechanics Magazine, 1939

As a “public” group, millions of Facebook users from anywhere on the planet can find us and passively observe our discussions. For those who wish to engage more actively, becoming a member (by making a request to the group admin) allows users to ask or answer questions, post information and receive notifications about our group’s activity. Some of our members belong to dozens of Facebook groups, but for others, like me, My Efficient Electric Home was their very first.

Ours isn’t the only internet group to discuss sustainability and energy efficiency. Various online resources such as the Whirlpool forum have been around for years, covering topics ranging from computer software to travel. Moderated sites such as the Alternative Technology Association and Choice have covered home-sustainability topics.

And of course we can’t forget the hundreds of comments left by readers of my previous home-energy-related articles right here on The Conversation. However, an attraction of Facebook over simpler message boards is Facebook’s wide range of features.

How it’s working

Members of our Facebook group can upload photos, videos, data files of energy use or generation, research reports, manuals for appliances, energy bills and letters from utility companies, links to other sites, relevant news articles, and more.

Thinking of switching off gas? Tim Forcey

Facebook’s technique of “rolling-up” and “cascading-down” discussion threads means that topics of less interest quickly sink from immediate view (although they are never lost). Months-old discussions are easily resurrected whenever a member adds a new comment or question. For example, subjects such as space-heating can lie dormant during the summer months, but become front-of-mind when winter again approaches.

Unlike some other discussion forums, we encourage commercial contacts and transactions (which are eventually taken offline by the customer and vendor), and subsequent feedback. I recently mined the data available within our group and found that our discussions may have influenced more than A$400,000 worth of member purchases. And we can only guess at the number of other onlooking householders who have been influenced by our publicly-visible discussions.

That said, not every discussion thread at our site centres on commercial transactions or choosing which appliances to buy. Researchers have surveyed our group to gain insight into our membership’s views and opinions. Some members are encouraging others to use their home experiences to join in pushing governments toward more progressive policies and regulations, ranging from removing disincentives for using heat pumps to limiting woodsmoke particulate pollution.

Making sense of sustainability

Many people find it difficult to source reliable information about improving their home’s comfort or reducing their environmental footprint. Every person and every home is different – often there are no simple answers to people’s needs and wants.

As the pace of technological change accelerates, the information available on government and other websites, although originally posted with good intent, quickly loses touch with the current market and may even mislead. The relative prices of gas and electricity can quickly change. Efficient home-energy technologies that have been proven overseas can suddenly appear on the Australian market.

For all its alleged malign influence in the world, information posted to Facebook is undeniably fast, topical and current. Groups like ours might be a useful way for people to find the information they need.

Tim Forcey 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.

Renewable energy will continue to grow in the US despite the antipathy of the incoming Trump administration.

The US president has been writing for academic journals to pre-empt arguments Trump or Republicans are likely to use to roll back his key accomplishments

Barack Obama called the adoption of clean energy in the US “irreversible” on Monday, putting pressure on his successor, Donald Trump, not to back away from a core strategy to fight climate change.

Obama, penning an opinion article in the journal Science, sought to frame the argument in a way that might appeal to the president-elect: in economic terms. He said the fact that the cost and polluting power of energy had dropped at the same time proved that fighting climate change and spurring economic growth were not mutually exclusive.

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US strategy offers no direct action to address threat of greenhouse gases on decline of sea ice habitat

The US Fish and Wildlife Service has released its plan for the recovery of threatened polar bears, acknowledging it will take no direct action to address the primary threat of greenhouse gases on the decline of sea ice habitat.

Related: This is the polar bear capital of the world, but the snow has gone

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Scientists say mothers hold babies on the left to help in bonding - and this is not unique to humans.

Moral philosopher Raimond Gaita and poet Nick Drake discuss their journeys into wild landscapes, that hold up a confronting mirror to ourselves, our ethics and our politics.

The Department is seeking comments on the Draft Recovery Plan for the Grey-headed Flying-fox (Pteropus poliocephalus). Consultation period closes 24 April 2017.

Windermere, Lake District The wood is coming back to life, aided by a man on a mission

Not everyone’s idea of a retirement present, perhaps, but three years ago Hamish Ross bought himself a wood to the east of Windermere, roughly triangular and bordered by a dry-stone wall. “The first thing we did was fix the walls and put up a deer-proof fence,” he said, leading me through the new gate. “They’d been getting in for decades – eaten everything. The under-storey had completely disappeared. Now, we get excited about brambles.”

As we walked along, he pointed out the line of 10 conifers he’d kept for shelter – all that remained of an acre of neglected Sitka spruce and larch. With the dense tangle gone, light could once more filter onto the ancient woodland floor, helping the 900 indigenous saplings that Hamish has planted over the past couple of years. Reaching to a couple of metres high, they were woven through the centre of the wood amid mature trees and fallen giants. An assortment of buds – elegant orange beech tips, the red bulbs of lime, fat nut-coloured horse chestnut and downy crab apple – adorned their branches. This winter, he will be planting 350 more.

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In China, the drone industry has expressed particular interest in how Unmanned Aerial Vehicles can be used to grow food and maintain crops.  

We're looking for the grey-crowned babbler in Northern Victoria; Indonesian students are loving life on a Northern Territory pastoral station; and a Cairns butcher reveals the secret behind his meat display cabinet.

Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 9 January 1917

Several correspondents in France have referred to the owls which find the trenches such profitable mouseries that they hunt by day. The latest note on the subject comes from one of our south coast camps, where a light brown owl – probably a barn owl – found daylight sport anything but peaceful. The lads who were watching it were not the trouble, but a number of gulls resented its presence, “and flew excitedly around it,” though apparently they did not venture to attack the unusual-looking bird. Then a rook, no doubt attracted by the calls of the gulls, came along, flying above the owl. It darted upon the mouse-hunter, striking it on the back with its beak, and down fell the owl. “We saw it no more,” writes my correspondent, but it does not follow that the owl was slain; a rook coming down with wings half-closed, “stooping” like a falcon, is certainly a formidable foe, but the feathers on an owl’s back are wonderfully thick and soft, and would act as an elastic cushion protecting the body.

A small bird which “seems to fly in jumps” has puzzled the same correspondent; it is black and white with “a black boomerang band on its white throat” and white streaks – outer feathers – on its tail. Undoubtedly our friend the pied wagtail; many of these birds are now wintering on our southern shores.

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Paris introduced free public transport; Madrid restricted cars; Londoners were advised to take less exercise

Winter smog returned to our cities in December. Modern smog is less visible than Victorian pea-soupers but a thin brown layer could be seen on the horizon as still weather trapped the air pollution.

Paris had ten days of smog at the start of the month; the worst pollution for a decade. Emergency actions to reduce the health impacts included free public transport, reduced traffic speeds, lorry bans in the city centre, a ban on wood burning and four days of alternating bans on cars with odd or even number plates.

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I have never been good at sticking to New Year’s resolutions. Whether it’s to floss my teeth more or to join a gym, I just don’t manage to keep them up. But this year I am setting myself a better goal – one that will save me money, time and be good for the planet. I’m going to start using a meal planning and pantry inventory app.

If you barely have time to scribble together a shopping list, let alone browse recipes or check cupboards before leaving the house, then meal planning apps are a great tool to help manage shopping, cooking and eating.

They have a range of features that help you track what’s in your pantry and fridge, import recipes, create meal plans, generate shopping lists, and sometimes all of the above. They take a bit of time to set up, but once that’s done they can make your life a lot easier.

Why plan meals?

It doesn’t sound very sexy, but planning meals and knowing what’s in your fridge and pantry when you go shopping is a great way to reduce food waste and save time and money.

Globally, one-third of edible food produced is wasted. This puts a strain on scarce resources such as land and water, and generates significant greenhouse gas emissions.

If food waste were a country, it would have the third-highest emissions after China and the US.

Menu planning also means fewer trips to the supermarket and less impulse spending, as well as helping you use leftovers more efficiently.

So what are these apps?

To get you started, I’ve put together an overview of a few useful apps that I came across during my research. Results of a recent survey by MenuForMums in the UK found that 90% of members saved time and money (and by default reduced food waste) by using its online meal planning service.

1.) Pepperplate is a mobile app that helps you to compile and organise your recipe collection, create meal plans, generate shopping lists and cook the recipes that you want to try.

Recipes can be imported by pasting their URL from the web or by entering them manually. They can then be used to create meal plans and interactive shopping lists which allow you to tick off items as you go and share with others. When cooking, Pepperplate will walk you through the recipes, complete with cooking timers. Other similar meal planning apps are BigOven and AnyList.

Recent research has shown that Melbourne wastes 200kg of food per person a year. Food waste image from www.shutterstock.com

2.) Cloud-Freezer helps you create shopping lists like Pepperplate, but focuses on inventories rather than meal planning. It allows you to keep track of the items you already have in your fridge, freezer and pantry, including expiry dates so you can plan what you need to eat first to reduce food waste.

Items can be added to shopping lists from a library of previous entries, moved between shopping lists and inventories, and between the inventories themselves (for example, if you move something from the freezer to the fridge to defrost). The app has a barcode scanner function connected to user-driven databases to help you enter items quickly. There are similar but less sophisticated cross-platform apps called GrocerEaze and Out of Milk.

3.) MealBoard offers the most features and could be life-changing if you take the time to set it up. It’s a combination of Pepperplate and Cloud-Freezer because it enables you to import recipes, plan meals, generate shopping lists and do inventories. Integrating these features turbocharges your ability to organise food activities because it automatically populates shopping lists with what you have to buy, taking into account what you already have at home.

This could save a lot of time and effort, and prevent a lot of duplicate shopping. If you’re prepared to do that, it’s a powerful tool. Another cross-platform app, FoodPlanner, boasts the same features as MealBoard.

So if you have some spare time in the holidays, after recovering from your food coma and before you join that gym, maybe take one of these apps for a trial run. Between Christmas leftovers and forgotten items in the back of your pantry, you may not need to shop for weeks.

The time you save might make it easier to stick to all your other resolutions, and your wallet and the planet will thank you for it.

Seona Candy is a research fellow on the Foodprint Melbourne project, which is funded by the Lord Mayor's Charitable Foundation. Project partners include the City of Melbourne and the peak bodies representing the local government areas in Melbourne's city fringe foodbowl. She has previously received funding from an Australian Research Council Linkage grant on the project ‘Modelling policy interventions to protect Australia's food security in the face of environmental sustainability challenges’ (LP120100168), a collaboration between researchers at the Victorian Eco-Innovation Lab (VEIL) at the University of Melbourne, Deakin University and Australian National University. She is currently also receiving funding from the Cooperative Research Centre for Low Carbon Living for a project investigating urban innovations for post-carbon resilient cities.

As the UK gets ready to build more nuclear plants, scientists are looking for new ways to tell our distant descendants where we’ve buried our sludge

Plans for a new fleet of UK nuclear power plants are under way. Last month, for example, Hitachi and the Japanese government confirmed a plan to construct 5.4 gigawatts of generating capacity at UK sites. But what about the waste? And what happens when, in thousands of years, our descendants – who may not read any current human language – find a store, and put themselves in danger?

A panel of scientists and linguists asked this question in 1981 when the US Department of Energy commissioned them to find a method of ensuring that whatever is left of humanity in 10,000 years’ time is warned off the sites we’ve been filling with radioactive sludge.

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Nasa research shows that ice-free summers are now imminent, posing a peril to us all

Something is happening to the floating sea ice of the Arctic, other than the well-documented retreat in its surface coverage each summer. Scientists are finding that Arctic sea ice is getting younger and thinner, which is set to continue in March, when US research reveals the winter maximum, and September, when it reveals the summer minimum, making it more vulnerable to a catastrophic and unprecedented break-up.

Nasa researchers have found that the thicker multi-year ice, which has survived several summer melt seasons, is being rapidly replaced by thinner, more ephemeral one-year ice formed over a single winter. This change makes the polar region increasingly vulnerable to storms that could smash their way through the final remnants of thinner, one-year sea ice, making a completely ice-free summer in the Arctic increasingly likely.

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