This year the Apollo 11 mission turns 50 - but what does the future hold for the Moon? The ephemeral shadows cast by human artefacts may soon be joined by more permanent scars of lunar mining.
A Renault Zoe charging. It’s currently one of the top-selling plug-in electric vehicles in Europe, but what would happen if subsidies dried up?
Werner Hillebrand-Hansen/Wikipedia
Electric vehicles are taking off, but will demand remain sustainable once governments phase out subsidies? And as the “hidden costs” of the EV revolution emerge, some might get left behind…
The aftermath of the dam burst in Brumadinho.
EPA-EFE/Antonio Lacerda
Scientists are figuring out how to reduce the cost of space travel – to and from the Moon and possibly to Mars. One approach is to mine the Moon for resources necessary for interplanetary travel.
While farmers are the familiar face of rural Australia, most jobs are not in agriculture or mining.
Dan Peled/AAP
Australia has a well-earned reputation as a mining nation. Now we’re moving towards mining ‘off world’, on the Moon.
A favourite argument of coal proponents is the idea that if their mine is knocked back, someone else will simply dig up coal elsewhere.
Mister Mackenzie/Wikimedia Commons
A NSW court’s decision to rule out a coalmine on the basis of climate change could signal a turning of the tide in an arena where environmental litigants have previously struggled to gain traction.
The Grand Canyon, which marks 100 years as a national park on Feb. 26, 2019, is known today as an iconic natural wonder. But early European visitors weren’t impressed.
A serval captured on a camera trap at an industrial site in South Africa.
Daan Loock
A high number of carnivores have been discovered at a huge industrial site in Mpumalanga, South Africa.
After 48 hours of frantic effort, Brazilian rescue workers have called off their search for survivors at a collapsed dam in Minas Gerais state.
AP Photo/Leo Correa
Nearly 1,800 Brazilian dams are at risk of failure, according to the government. Fixing them is expensive – but ignoring aging dams can have considerable social, economic and environmental costs.
Rio Tinto’s mineral sands mine near Richards Bay, north of Durban. Plans for similar operation in the Xolobeni region south of Durban have been resisted by the local community.
Mathias Rittgerott/Rettet den Regenwald
An American coal company is suing the Canadian government over Alberta’s plan to combat climate change.
Old mine sites suffer many fates, which range from simply being abandoned to being incorporated into towns or turned into an open-air museum in the case of Gwalia, Western Australia.
The industrial patterns of mining shaped many Australian towns, which found varied uses for disused mine sites. The mining boom ensures the challenges these sites present will be with us a long time.
A Xolobeni villager protesting against mine development.
Flickr/Patricia Alejandro
A massive new discovery this summer of miles of corals in deep waters off South Carolina shows how much we have yet to learn about life on the ocean floor.