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If you like good food, clean water, and protection from disease, you’re probably a fan of biosecurity. AAP Julian Smith

Explainer: why Australia needs biosecurity

When the Department of Agriculture called a halt to imports of pop star Katy Perry’s latest album this month, they weren’t making a musical judgement. They were protecting Australia’s biosecurity. Biosecurity…
Tony Abbott and Greg Hunt have deferred increasing Australia’s emissions targets until 2015. AAP Image/Alan Porritt

Is Australia shirking its international climate commitments?

This week Tony Abbott confirmed that Australia will not increase its emission reduction target from 5% below 2000 levels unless other countries make serious commitments. In a subsequent interview, environment…
The paradise of Lord Howe Island has a grim history of biodiversity loss. Roberta W B

Australian endangered species: Lord Howe Long-eared Bat

Some threatened species are familiar and well-known; others are obscure. The Lord Howe Long-eared Bat may be the epitome of obscure. Were it not for the fluke discovery of a singe tiny but distinctive…
Not an award you want to get: Australia is named and shamed for holding up climate progress. Climate Action Network

Australia makes a bad start at Warsaw climate change meeting

It’s been embarrassment after embarrassment for Australia at the Warsaw climate change meeting. Former UN Climate Chief, Yvo de Boer, upbraided Australia for its failure to send a Minister. Australia was…
A feral cat by the roadside. EPA/Nic Bothma

How desexing cats saves lives

Thousands of unowned cats wander Australian streets every night. Some are feral, existing in self-sustaining populations not reliant on people, while others are semi-feral and are either fed by people…
Climate impacts are at the forefront of Warsaw climate talks. EPA/Jakub Kaminski

Warsaw talks: climate action is failing

Karen McNamara is reporting from the Warsaw Conference of Parties for The Conversation. One of the most hotly-contested issues on the agenda for the current round of climate talks in Warsaw is “loss and…
New research suggests penguins evolved with the Antarctic. Flickr/Martha de Jong Lantink

Was penguin evolution driven by a cooling Antarctic?

Penguins are a remarkable group of flightless birds. We tend to think of them as Antarctic birds, but they actually inhabit an extremely diverse range of habitats from subzero Antarctic coastline to the…
Typhoon Haiyan as seen from space on November 9 by NASA astronaut Karen L. Nyberg. http://twitter.com/AstroKarenN

Inside Typhoon Haiyan and a year of weird weather

Even before Typhoon Haiyan struck the Philippines with such devastating force, weather watchers around the world had been tracking this year’s typhoon season with intense interest. Typhoon Haiyan has been…
How much will getting rid of the carbon price save households? AAP Image/Alan Porritt

Axing the carbon tax: saving households, costing climate

With the government introducing legislation to repeal the carbon price today, people might be wondering how much they will benefit from reduced cost of living. The government has continued to claim that…
Too little, too late: the Philippines President hands out water to survivors in Tacloban City. EPA/RYAN LIM/ MALACANANG PHOTO BUREAU HANDOUT

Climate change and government inaction conspired against Philippines

Filipinos are no strangers to big storms. Their country sits next to the world’s most intense typhoon generator, a huge expanse of deep, warm ocean in the North West Pacific. More than 20 tropical storms…
Reducing emissions will work better if we’re not so stuck in our abatement ways. Power plant image from shutterstock.com

Direct action vs carbon pricing: we can have it all

We should not be debating a choice between direct action and carbon pricing: we need both, but with credible, well-designed mechanisms. Why we need both We need a carbon price based on certificate trading…
Tony Abbott can have an emissions trading scheme and be a good conservative politician. Dean Lewins/AAP

How the Coalition can keep a carbon price and its election promises

Perhaps the Abbott government can solve its climate change problem by revisiting an old Coalition policy. Before the 2013 election the Coalition promised to cut the “carbon tax”, introduce direct action…
Elephant ivory seized from poachers in Garamba. Flickr: ENOUGH Project

The Ivory War: militarised tactics won’t work

Elephant and rhino poaching in Africa have been rising; the Western black rhino has just been declared extinct. Demand in Asia, particularly China, for these animals’ tusks and horns has been identified…
One is a national emergency, one isn’t. AAP Image/Courtesy; SBS Dateline, Supplied by Hussein Khoder & AAP Image/Dan Peled

Why ‘the boats’ are a national emergency and climate change isn’t

As anyone who has seen immigration minister Scott Morrison’s recent military-style press conferences knows, the Coalition has declared asylum seeker boats arriving in Australia are a “national emergency…
The Queensland government is preparing the way for more coal ports, but there are indications coal production and profits are on the way down. AAP Image/Alan Porritt

If coal’s in trouble, why build more coal ports?

If the Abbot Point expansion is approved by the Commonwealth Environment Minister next month, port dredging will go ahead. Private investment in coal ports and rail may no longer stack up, as BHP Billiton…
It’s too early for the new government to lose interest in international climate negotiations. EPA/NIC BOTHMA

Abbott’s climate ‘diplomacy’ sends the wrong message

This week, the Australian Government announced that it would not send a minister to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations in Poland for the first time since 1997. This announcement…
A year after Hurricane Sandy, President Obama has taken serious steps toward climate adaptation. Australia is also subject to extreme weather, but we’re underprepared. Charlie Walker

Obama prepares US for climate change impacts – what is Australia waiting for?

The political controversy which erupted recently about the influence of climate change on the NSW bushfires was a distraction. First, the Climate Council has confirmed climate change is influencing the…
What’s threatening the Mallacoota burrowing crayfish? Point the finger at grazing, forestry, and fishing. Jason Coughran

Australian endangered species: Victorian burrowing crayfish

Burrowing crayfish are a particular challenge to survey and to conserve because they live underground, and their ability to disperse is extremely limited. Sometimes this means that impacts on their habitat…
How does the power get from there to here? alkhodarev/Flickr

Explainer: how does the electricity grid work?

Where would we be without electricity? Assuming that you own a fridge, there won’t be many points in your life when you aren’t making use of it. But what do we mean when we talk about the electricity grid…
What is the relationship between carbon dioxide and temperature rise? Werner Wittersheim

Explainer: what is climate sensitivity?

Humans are emitting CO2 and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. As these gases build up they trap extra heat and make the climate warmer. But how much warmer? Scientists have long understood that…
You never know what you’ll catch on camera in PNG. Tenkile Conservation Alliance

Into the jungles of Papua New Guinea: a personal journey

Much of my time as an ecology lecturer has been spent teaching students about the wonders of this planet’s biodiversity, but also regrettably, how much of this biodiversity is under severe threat. Hundreds…