Feed aggregator

A historic growing movement for Indigenous rights is a key to protecting land and water and preventing climate chaos

As Indigenous peoples faced off against armed police and tanks near the Standing Rock Sioux reservation in Dakota, theirs wasn’t just a battle over a pipeline. It was a battle over a story that could define the future of America.

The Obama administration’s decision yesterday to refuse the Dakota Access pipeline permission to complete its construction has now shaken up that story. Its old version was that Indigenous peoples have always been in the way of progress, their interests a nuisance or threat, their treaties a discardable artifact. In that story, the American heroes forged on these high plains of the west were never the Indians: they were the gold-diggers or gamblers, the cowboys or cavalry.

Continue reading...

Although progress is being made, up to US $906bn of company turnover is still tied to global deforestation, an assessment suggests.

The UK has bought the capsule which sent Tim Peake into space and returned him to Earth.

Oxford University professor who studied Cecil says strictly regulated hunting could help stop destruction of lion habitats

Trophy hunting could help conserve lions, according to the Oxford University scientist who had studied Cecil the lion for years before the animal was killed by an American dentist.

A new report by Prof David MacDonald for UK ministers concluded that strictly regulated hunting of lions could provide a financial incentive to protect areas of wild lion habitat from being destroyed, which is the biggest threat to the big cats. But MacDonald said the UK should ban the import of any lion trophies from hunts that failed to prove their sustainability.

Continue reading...

Google Earth timelapse show how the earth has changed over 32 years. A series of videos highlight the changing faces of urban and natural environments across the globe. Google combined over 5 million satellite images acquired over the past three decades by five different satellites to create the timelapses

• Google’s satellite timelapses show the inconvenient truth about our planet

Continue reading...

Fast new patrol vessel built with Dutch, British and Swedish lottery funds aims to challenge Japan’s defiance of international court ruling on whaling

Two ships have left Australia bound for the freezing Southern Ocean to confront the Japanese whaling fleet in an annual high-seas battle, the environmental activist group Sea Shepherd has said.

The organisation’s flagship, Steve Irwin, departed for Antarctic waters on Monday along with a fast new patrol vessel, Ocean Warrior, built with financial support from the Dutch, British and Swedish lotteries.

Continue reading...

Sacha Dench is first woman to cross the Channel in a motorised paraglider, as part of her journey following migrating birds from Russia to Britain

The conservationist and “human swan” Sacha Dench has become the first woman to cross the English Channel in a motorised paraglider during her epic 4,500-mile journey following migrating birds from the Russian tundra to Britain.

The 41-year-old made history crossing the Channel on her paramotor after an eventful 10-week flight accompanying the annual migration of Bewick swans to better understand the reasons for their declining numbers.

Continue reading...

Flooding across parts of the UK last winter was the most extreme on record, experts say.

Climate scientists and real science journalists pushed back, holding the post-truth crowd accountable

Human carbon pollution is heating the Earth incredibly fast. On top of that long-term human-caused global warming trend, there are fluctuations caused by various natural factors. One of these is the El Niño/La Niña cycle. The combination of human-caused warming and a strong El Niño event are on the verge of causing an unprecedented three consecutive record-breaking hot years.

Simply put, without global warming we would not be seeing record-breaking heat year after year. In fact, 2014 broke the temperature record without an El Niño assist, and then El Niño helped push 2015 over 2014, and 2016 over 2015.

Continue reading...

Highest ever rainfall recorded in UK was in December 2015 at Honister Pass in Lake District with 341.4mm falling in 24 hours

An appraisal of the winter floods of 2015-2016, published on the first anniversary of Storm Desmond, reveals it ranks alongside the devastating flooding of March 1947 as the largest event of at least the last century.

November 2015 to January 2016 was the wettest three-month period in records dating back to 1910, while December was both the wettest and, on average, the warmest on record for the UK.

Continue reading...

Mayor’s proposed investment gets near levels seen in cycle-friendly nations such as Netherlands and Denmark

London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, has promised to spend £770m on cycling initiatives over the course of his term, saying he wants to make riding a bike the “safe and obvious” transport choice for all Londoners.

Following criticism that Khan has not been as bold as his predecessor, Boris Johnson, in committing to new bike routes, and amid increasing worries about air quality in London, Khan’s office has set out what is described as a hugely ambitious programme to boost cyclist numbers.

Continue reading...

But an analyst warns that it is not clear which part of the sprawling Indian conglomerate would receive the money

The conservative backbencher George Christensen has backed the idea of the controversial mining company Adani getting a $1bn loan from the Turnbull government for a rail line in his Queensland electorate.

But an analyst has warned the government would have to conduct strict due diligence to ensure the loan was not funnelled through the Cayman Islands tax haven.

Continue reading...

Protesters at Standing Rock respond to news that the Army Corps of Engineers will not grant the permit for the Dakota Access pipeline to drill under the Missouri river. Environmental activists gathered to celebrate their win after a months long campaign to block the pipeline

• Standing Rock: US denies key permit for Dakota Access pipeline, in win for tribe

Continue reading...

Tony Abbott's Green Army scheme is expected to be cut in MYEFO and the government says goodbye to John Key.

Environment Minister Josh Frydenberg announced his department would be conducting a review of Australia's climate change policies.

These red and yellow blobs are yellow lac scale insects that feed crazy ants. A tiny wasp could reduce both populations. Parks Australia

A couple of days ago I published an article with Peter Green about the imminent release of a tiny wasp that will be used for biological control of a bug that feeds the crazy ants that kill red crabs on Christmas Island.

It is understandable that people are nervous about the introduction of exotic species to manage wildlife in a natural setting. It turns out that ecologists are even more nervous than the public about this, so if they have decided to do it anyway, then there is a remarkably good reason.

Parasitoid wasps use scale insects

The release of the wasp has concerned some readers because they imagine swarms of biting insects setting up their nests in the back garden. The truth is that the wasps that will be released are tiny and unlikely to be noticed at all.

First of all, Tachardiaephagus somervillei are only 2 mm long and cannot sting humans or other animals. They do not form colonies, they do not swarm, and they do not build nests. In fact, they won’t be at all interested in hanging around human habitations unless there is a tree nearby containing a colony of the yellow lac scale insect (Tachardina aurantiaca).

This is because these wasps are parasitoids – a type of parasitic organism that kills its host species. They don’t need a nest or a colony because the scale insects they target are both their food source and their home.

The specificity of the wasp for this particular type of scale insect can be seen in the first part of their Latin names: Tachardiaephagus literally means “eater of Tachardina”.

Scale insects use ants

Scale insects are a type of true bug (in the Order Hemiptera) that line up along tree branches like barnacles, sucking sap from the tree and in their mature form, releasing a sweet liquid known as honeydew from their backsides for the benefit of ants. They don’t do this for nothing. Their strategy is to use the ants as body guards.

In a situation where scale insects are relatively rare this increases the number of the ants who will in turn protect the scale insects. On Christmas Island, where the introduced yellow lac scale insects have become common because they do not have any natural predators, the invasive crazy ants have access to large quantities of honeydew. In this case, the crazy ants are using the yellow lac scale insects as a super abundant food source.

The super colonies that have formed as a result have instigated an environmental disaster. The crazy ants kill red crabs and other species mostly due to their extremely high densities driven by the abundance of honeydew.

Any detractors concerned about the dangers of yet another invasive species have not fully grasped the consequences of doing nothing. Chemical baiting of the ants is ongoing but has consequences for other animals and is not environmentally desirable or sustainable.

People using wasps

If the scale insects can use the ants as bodyguards and the ants can use the scale insects as a free food source, why can’t we use a tiny wasp as a biological control?

Unlike birds, lizards or other predators that may be deterred by ants crawling all over the scale insects, the tiny parasitoid wasps can slip through and lay their eggs in a scale insect without being noticed by the ants. Their eggs hatch and develop inside the scale insect, emerging as adult wasps that are ready to lay their eggs in another scale insect nearby.

In essence, the wasp uses the scale insect as a one-stop nursery, food source and conveniently located launching pad for the next generation. Inside a scale insect colony, they are likely to find another scale insect less than a centimetre from where they were born.

Consider how this will allow the wasp population to quickly grow and, perhaps, reduce the scale insect colony density so that the wasps will eventually have to fly further and further to find another scale insect. At some point the effort to find more scale insects will balance the benefit of finding an insect, and the two populations (wasp and scale insect) will reach a new equilibrium at a lower density.

How will the crazy ants respond?

The wasp will not run out of food, nor will the scale insects become extinct, but the ants will find themselves deprived of excess honeydew and will have to adjust their populations accordingly.

How do you empirically test the response of the ants to the removal of excess honeydew from their environment? Well, you can’t remove the scale insects but you can prevent the ants from getting into the trees where the scale insects live, even though it wasn’t easy. Apparently, doing this involves Glad wrap, Mr Sheen furniture polish, and daily vigilance by a research student.

The result was a 95% decrease in crazy ant activity in a few weeks, an outcome that suggests this approach has every chance of reducing the impacts of crazy ants on Christmas Island.

What happens next?

I understand that the team is gathering in Malaysia today to pack up some wasps and fly them to Christmas Island. The release will not happen right away, as the wasps will be acclimatised and grown up in large numbers in a dedicated facility. Monitoring programs are planned to observe the impacts, both short and long term, on the scale insects, the ants, the crabs and the forest structure.

The research to understand the ecology of Christmas Island sufficiently to identify a biological control agent started decades ago, and many scientists were involved along the way. It is not possible to provide links to all the research articles produced thus far, but here is a link to the final risk report.

I am not involved with the research but am familiar with it and in my view there are two things that could happen next. Either the wasp will fail to reduce the scale insect populations and nothing changes, or they will reduce the scale insect populations which could kick start a cascade of beneficial environmental outcomes for Christmas Island.

We are all really hoping that it is the latter.

Disclosure

Susan Lawler has received funding from the Australian Research Council in the past.

Llanberis, Snowdonia In a clearing, a black-headed beast with horns as magnificent as any fairytale faun, is munching grass next to an old red-painted winding house

The glug-glug of bubbles on the surface is a sign of divers in the depths. I watch their dark shapes rippling slowly in the emerald water for a while, before taking a slippery slate staircase winding up through the still autumnal oak woodland surrounding the flooded Vivian quarry.

In a clearing lit briefly by November sun, a brown-coated, blacked-headed beast with horns as magnificent as any fairytale faun, is munching grass next to an old red-painted winding house. It is a scene of storybook strangeness. The horned head turns slowly, fixing me briefly with a pair of yellow eyes, then returns indifferently to its business.

Continue reading...

Environmentalists say mandatory labelling on food would limit demand for palm oil products and reduce destructive impact of plantations

Environmentalists are warning that Australia’s repeated delays on mandatory palm oil labelling are allowing deforestation and the destruction of orangutan habitats to continue unabated.

A proposal requiring palm oils to be specifically listed on food labels has now been under consideration by Australian and New Zealand ministers for more than five years.

Continue reading...

Climate policy review presents clear opportunity to join host of other countries choosing a credible pathway to net zero emissions by mid-century.

Dry period in semi-arid central Australia James Cleverly

Back in 2010-11 Australia “greened”, as record-breaking rains triggered a boom in plant growth that removed huge amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and stored it as carbon in the landscape.

But what happened after that? Our latest research, published in Scientific Reports, shows that this greening was short-lived and was rapidly dissipated through drought and fire.

Our study also shows that as extreme wet years are getting wetter and more common, Australia’s terrestrial ecosystems will play a larger role in the global carbon cycle.

Carbon, water and climate change

Each year, land plants absorb the equivalent of more than a quarter of the carbon emissions generated by burning fossil fuels and deforestation. This helps to partly offset global increases in atmospheric CO₂ concentration. In 2011, this “land carbon sink” was unusually large, thanks largely to the greening of Australia’s vegetation, which accounted for 60% of the global carbon uptake anomaly that year.

Flux towers for measuring carbon and water fluxes between ecosystem and the atmosphere: (left) Calperum near Adelaide; (right) Alice Springs Mulga woodland in central Australia. Both sites are part of Australia’s Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network, or TERN. from www.ozflux.org.au

Satellite imaging and ground observations from CO₂ “flux” towers showed that much of the 2011 greening happened in savannas and grasslands, largely in central Australia. New data shows that the return of drought conditions in many of these areas has quickly un-greened them.

Mulga dry tropical forest in central Australia was extraordinarily green and took large amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. James Cleverly Be resilient, be prepared

To an extent this is no surprise. Australia’s dryland plant species live in the most variable climates in the world. As such these ecosystems can swing rapidly between being highly productive in wet years and becoming nearly dormant to withstand drought during dry ones.

Given that the 2010-11 extreme greening followed on rapidly from the protracted Millennium Drought, it should hardly be surprising that we find the ecosystem has now swung back the other way so promptly.

Australia’s climate is the most variable in the world. (a) shows the variability of rainfall (coefficient of variance or CV) compared with other continents; (b) shows the same in Australia for four periods. Ma et al. (2016) Australia’s unique native hummock grassland (Spinifex) in dry season (left) and wet season (right). James Cleverly Drought and fire count

On a biological level, the reason that plants take up less carbon dioxide during dry periods is because this process costs water. Plants exchange gases with the atmosphere via tiny pores on their leaves called stomata, through which CO₂ diffuses in during the day but through which water also escapes.

When water is scarce it is more important to conserve it. This is why during drought conditions plants tend to reduce their carbon dioxide uptake by closing stomata or even shedding leaves entirely.

Sometimes the combination of heat and drought can be so stressful that plants die, ultimately decomposing or burning and releasing all of their stored carbon back to the atmosphere.

Australia’s ungreening

Our research shows that these processes began to take hold across Australia during the second half of 2012 and into 2013. As the chart below shows, this diminishes Australia’s large net carbon uptake as boosted by the 2010-11 wet year.

Drought rapidly eliminates Australia’s large land carbon uptake. (left) SPEI drought index; (right) satellite measures of ecosystem productivity and water storage across Australia. Ma et al. (2016)

We also found that carbon dioxide emissions from fires increased during this period. This makes sense too, given that the productive wet period spurred more plant growth, which then became fuel for fire during the subsequent drought.

As a result, Australia’s semi-arid landscapes are mostly dry once again, although the speed with which they greened and then ungreened suggests that they will be quickly refreshed when the next big deluge arrives.

Not alone

Australia’s giant green carbon sink was remarkable, but was it unique? There are two ways we can answer this question: we can wait and see if there’s another one, or we can go back and look at the historical record.

Fortunately, with long-term satellite observations, we have measurements of the entire continent back to 2000, and even earlier for some data sets. Our new research shows that the 2010–11 event was not unique. Rather, it was something that tends to happen whenever Australia has a strong wet phase, such as the one in 2000-01.

This means we can expect more large greening events to happen again in the future. One important question is whether these will be as strong as in 2010-11 – or perhaps even stronger?

Wilder, not milder

Interestingly, by looking at continent-wide rainfall records for each significant wet period dating back to 1900, we found that Australia’s wet episodes have become significantly wetter over the past century. Given this trend, we expect that in the near future Australia’s terrestrial ecosystems will come to play a larger role in the global carbon cycle. The intensification of these wet pulses is mostly seen in central and northwestern Australia.

A wilder future with more rain during wet years will have important implications, not only for carbon uptake by plants, but also for many other important issues such as flood risk management, water rights and increased bushfire danger once the landscape dries out again. We had better keep an eye on that.

Intensification of Australia’s wet extremes since 1900s. Most of the intensification is seen in central and northwestern Australia. Ma et al. (2016)

Australian ecosystems are important locally and globally: they absorb carbon, produce food and contain huge species diversity. But these “ecosystem services” are vulnerable to climate change and the increasing frequency of extreme wet and dry events.

Knowing in detail how the landscape is likely to respond to these ever more erratic swings between wet and dry will be a crucial help in learning how we can best respond to drought and deluge in future.

So long, farewell, (for now) Australia’s “great green boom”.

Xuanlong Ma receives an Early Career Research Grant (PRO16-1358) from the University of Technology Sydney.

Alfredo Huete receives funding from The Australian Research Council, NSW-RAAP, NHMRC, TERN, and UTS.

Ben Poulter receives funding from the United States National Science Foundation, the United State Geological Society, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Derek Eamus receives funding from The Australian Research Council, Google, Hunter Water Corporation, Mid-Coast Water and UTS.

James Cleverly 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.