The pursuit of ‘vanity height’ in skyscrapers is driven by aesthetic appeal and the status of being ‘the tallest’. Redefining how we measure building heights can help cut the environmental cost.
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Environment + Energy – Articles, Analysis, Comment
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When it comes to storing carbon, alpine peatlands are powerhouses. But feral horse grazing and trampling tips the carbon balance in the other direction. We need to protect and restore our peatlands.
Why is Australia talking about opening new gas fields as a way to reach net zero?
Why have we seen so many extreme floods in recent years? Climate change is supercharging thunderstorms, adding moisture and heat.
Humans and animals can hide from extreme heat. But plants have no escape. To protect our crops from the heat to come will likely mean modifying them.
Once sold as ‘penny turtles’ around Australia, the Mary River turtle’s plight galvanised local community efforts to save it from extinction.
Building ecological grief literacy in workplaces can help environmental professionals manage constant exposure to the many causes of their grieving.
A clever approach to restoring Australia’s native oyster and mussel reefs in Queensland’s Moreton Bay is catching on, giving community groups a way to get involved in their local patch.
It was once a gross industrial sewer. But decades of work has turned Merri Creek into a green ribbon in Melbourne’s north.
Environmental success depends on social connections. So if you want to start a new group, you need to think about the people as much as the problem.
Most of us just take it for granted. But bark is one of the most complex parts of a tree and has many different jobs to do.
Changing work habits and shifting environmental priorities demand new models of urban redevelopment. Architectural ‘exaptation’ uses the past to reimagine the future.
Insisting nuclear power is the only way for Australia to achieve net zero by 2050 is a classic move from the playbook of those who oppose urgent action on climate change.
How long will it take for electric vehicles to cut emissions and improve air in our cities? Longer than we think – because petrol and diesel make up almost all of the fleet.
Corporations have an incentive to make profits – even if their products hurt or even kill people. Here’s how to stop history repeating.
Producing energy from harvested trees and other plants – bioenergy – might sound like a greener option, but it’s not a simple issue.
The fossil record suggests Australia may be much wetter, and look far different, in centuries and millenia to come.
Among the poisons found in 36% of the frogs tested, rodenticide was detected for the first time. Pesticides are considered a threat to hundreds of amphibian species.
It shouldn’t take sustained public outrage to stop environmentally destructive projects. Nature positive offers us a way forward.
Yes we need land for solar panels, wind farms, batteries, pumped hydro, transmission lines and so on. But the amount of land is surprisingly small, when you do the sums. Here’s why.
In Australia, the taxpayer has footed the bill for the forever chemical clean-up so far. But this will have to change.
Symbiosis is so much part of life on Earth that it has shaped the evolution and structure of cells. It’s happening almost everywhere we look, including inside our gut.
Four years of persistent ozone holes have sparked concern about what more UV is doing to Antarctic ecosystems.
The rights-of-nature movement emerged as a response to economic pressures on ecosystems. But the success of projects depends on how well legal liability is defined.
The more plastic, the more waste we produce. It sounds simple, but this discovery could help us find ways of ending plastic pollution.