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…
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Environment + Energy – Articles, Analysis, Comment
Displaying 5776 - 5800 of 7527 articles
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…
Several Australian corporate figures have recently disparaged climate scientists. First, former banker David Murray questioned the integrity of climate scientists on national TV. Casting such aspersions…
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…
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…
Do the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Club of Rome deserve a reputation as modern Chicken Littles who claimed repeatedly that the sky is falling? According to Hugh Morgan - former…
The idiosyncratic nature of pledges by countries to stem their greenhouse gas emissions is an indicator of the chaos that characterises international climate change policy. The countries that have quantified…
In almost all parts of the world our environment is under siege and we are losing the battle to save many species from extinction. The most common threats behind this unfolding catastrophe are habitat…
The cold weather has come, the coal-powered heating has been switched on, and China’s north is once more swathed in thick smog. Air pollution has been a worsening problem in China in recent years, and…
Last week, video footage of animal cruelty kicked off yet another live export controversy. The footage appeared to show not just confronting and inappropriate animal treatment, but the likely movement…
Why do we clamour to keep foreign-owned car makers here, paying them billions of dollars to stay, while being wary of foreign investment in farms? Around 0.1% of foreign investment last year was in agriculture…
This decade has been called the “critical decade” for action on climate change. Decisions that we make in the years up to 2020 will determine the severity of climate change, and the impact it will have…
The Queensland and Australian government’s draft strategic assessment of the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area has been released today. The strategic assessment was prompted by the 2012 UNESCO-IUCN…
Australia has the most concentrated press ownership in the world. What does that mean for significant issues such as climate change? In 2011 and 2012 we at the Australian Centre for Independent Journalism…
Climate change has yet again been blamed for another natural disaster, this time the recent bushfires in NSW. But much more important is the role of poor land-use planning decisions that are increasing…
When tragedies such as the NSW bushfires strike it might feel thoughtless and insensitive to talk about climate change. But history proves there are three reasons that disasters are precisely the time…
Yesterday, the Climate Change Authority released its interim report on future emissions targets. The report recommends two options to replace Australia’s short term (2020) mitigation target of 5% below…
The Abbott Government’s proposed repeal of Australia’s climate legislation will be heard through history. This action is being taken at a time when the rest of the world is moving in the other direction…
The celebrated New York Highline is one of the world’s urban redesign success stories. Formerly an abandoned railway, it is now an elevated park running past, over and through the buildings of Manhattan…
Australia was once home to gigantic reptiles, birds and marsupials, but sadly they’re no longer with us. What happened to them has been a source of ongoing debate, whether it was human hunting, climate…
We’ve heard quite a bit about the health of our oceans lately. Australian yachtsman Ivan Macfadyen recently retraced his oceanic voyage of ten years ago from Melbourne to Japan, finding an absence of sea…
We have already committed the planet to a certain amount of warming due to past carbon emissions. But efforts to reduce emissions now and over the next few decades will critically affect the degree of…
Recently NASA reported that this year’s maximum wintertime extent of Antarctic sea ice was the largest on record, even greater than the previous year’s record. This is understandably at odds with the public’s…
For the people of northern Australia, dangerous jellyfish stings are all too common. But under changing ocean conditions, could more of these dangerous jellyfish be moving farther south along the Queensland…
The ability of a country to make its mind up says a lot about how prepared it is for the future, its resilience and its competitive standing. How a country goes about reducing its carbon is very revealing…