Around The Web

Horizon gets ARENA funding for micro-grid trials in W.A.

RenewEconomy - Wed, 2017-11-15 12:58
Horizon gets ARENA funding for renewable-based micro-grid trials that will reduce dependence on fossil fuels.
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Insurance industry must act on the coal sector

RenewEconomy - Wed, 2017-11-15 11:29
European insurers are limiting their exposure to the coal sector, while American and Australian insurers continue to support business as usual.
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Minerals deal needed to fuel the clean energy transition

RenewEconomy - Wed, 2017-11-15 11:24
As international talks focus on need for rapid deployment of renewables, little attention is paid to the minerals that needed to build these technologies.
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Climate's magic rabbit: Pulling CO2 out of thin air

BBC - Wed, 2017-11-15 11:02
Can technology to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere really help prevent dangerous climate change?
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Trump team looks for alternative approaches to Paris pact

BBC - Wed, 2017-11-15 10:32
President Trump's climate adviser says that the US is looking to revive Bush-era climate forum.
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'Climate change is bad...it affects everything'

BBC - Wed, 2017-11-15 10:11
People in Vunidogoloa had to move 2km (1.24m) inland, and say climate change is to blame.
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Green planet

BBC - Wed, 2017-11-15 10:07
The United Arab Emirates' space research is turning to growing food on Mars.
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Press print

BBC - Wed, 2017-11-15 10:02
The Swedish hi-tech firm at the forefront of using 3D printing to create human ears, noses and other body parts.
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Cattle Hill wind farm connection agreement finalised

RenewEconomy - Wed, 2017-11-15 08:47
The Connection Agreement sets out the terms and conditions through which the wind farm is able to successfully connect to TasNetworks’ transmission network and is another key step in paving the way for the construction of the 144MW wind farm.
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Meet the latest organisations to achieve carbon neutral certification

Department of the Environment - Wed, 2017-11-15 08:36
WWF-Australia becomes Australia’s first not-for-profit conservation organisation to be certified as carbon neutral.
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Victoria presses go on Australia’s biggest renewables auction

RenewEconomy - Wed, 2017-11-15 08:06
Victoria presses go on auction of 650MW of wind and solar capacity, the largest renewable energy tender in Australia to date. It's a critical move as the RET nears completion and Canberra stalls on future policy settings.
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Curious Kids: Do most volcanologists die from getting too close to volcanoes?

The Conversation - Wed, 2017-11-15 05:13
Volcanologists study the formation and eruptions of volcanoes - surely one of the most interesting jobs around. However, it can also be very dangerous. Jozua van Otterloo, Assistant Lecturer in Volcanology, Monash University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
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Time for a global agreement on minerals to fuel the clean energy transition

The Conversation - Wed, 2017-11-15 05:12
In the decades ahead, our mineral supply will still need to double or triple to meet the demand for electric vehicles and other renewable energy technology. Damien Giurco, Professor of Resource Futures, University of Technology Sydney Nicholas Arndt, Professor of Geosciences, Université Grenoble Alpes Saleem H. Ali, Distinguished Professor of Energy and the Environment, University of Delaware (USA); Professorial Research Fellow, The University of Queensland Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
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Stranded orca refloated in New Zealand

BBC - Wed, 2017-11-15 03:57
Volunteers and military personnel worked together to help return the killer whale to the ocean.
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Into the woods: The Japanese way to beat stress

BBC - Wed, 2017-11-15 03:49
One army veteran suffering from PTSD says Forest Bathing is helping him sleep.
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Switching to organic farming could cut greenhouse gas emissions, study shows

The Guardian - Wed, 2017-11-15 03:17

Study also finds that converting conventionally farmed land would not overly harm crop yields or require huge amounts of additional land to feed rising populations

Converting land from conventional agriculture to organic production could reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the run-off of excess nitrogen from fertilisers, and cut pesticide use. It would also, according to a new report, be feasible to convert large amounts of currently conventionally farmed land without catastrophic harm to crop yields and without needing huge amounts of new land.

The study, published in the journal Nature Communications, found that by combining organic production with an increasingly vegetarian diet, ways of cutting food waste, and a return to traditional methods of fixing nitrogen in the soil instead of using fertiliser, the world’s projected 2050 population of more than 9 billion could be fed without vastly increasing the current amount of land under agricultural production.

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Global insurance plan aims to defuse potential climate damage 'bombshell'

The Guardian - Wed, 2017-11-15 03:07

A scheme unveiled at the UN climate summit aims to help protect 400 million poor people from extreme weather by 2020 - but not everyone is convinced

“I was wondering if it was a dream,” said Walter Edwin, who sells honey from more than 50 beehives in Dennery on the Caribbean island of St Lucia. He had just received a phone call telling him to go to the bank for an automatic insurance payout following the major hurricane that struck in 2014.

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Lunching ranger discovers species lost for 40 years

The Guardian - Tue, 2017-11-14 18:52

In 1975 two conservationists discovered a gorgeous salamander in the rainforests of Guatemala. No one ever saw it again – and Jackson’s climbing salamander was feared extinct – until last month when local forest guard, Ramos León-Tomás, sat down in the forest for lunch.

The last time anyone saw Jackson’s climbing salamander – I didn’t yet exist. It was 1975: Margaret Thatcher took over leadership of the Tories, Saigon fell to Communist forces, the USSR was still a thing, and everyone was listening to Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody. And in Guatemala, reeling from over a decade of civil war, two American conservationists found a little treasure of black and gold: they named it Jackson’s climbing salamander. Then it vanished as if it had never been.

Forty-two years later a lot has changed. The world is hotter than it has been in over 100,000 years and species are vanishing at rates that portend mass extinction. Yet, miracles can still happen.

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Miniature robots could cut pesticide use on farms in future

The Guardian - Tue, 2017-11-14 18:30

Robots could also reduce food waste and help harvest crops, but they may not be commercially available for some years to come, say experts

Miniature robot farmers may be the answer to concerns over chemical use on farms and cutting down on food waste, as well as easing labour shortages, academic farming experts have said.

The drawback is that the machines in question, while developed in laboratories to an advanced stage, are not yet commercially available in the UK. In an optimistic scenario, they could become available in as little as three years, but that would be likely to take large investment and a high degree of entrepreneurialism in the private sector, the experts said on Monday.

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Norway sued over Arctic oil exploration plans

The Guardian - Tue, 2017-11-14 18:00

The case, led by Greenpeace, claims Norwegian government has violated constitutional right to a healthy environment and contravenes Paris agreement

The Norwegian government is being sued by climate activists over a decision to open up areas of the Arctic Ocean for oil exploration, a move they say endangers the lives of existing and future generations.

The plaintiffs, led by environmental organisations Greenpeace and Youth and Nature, will on Tuesday claim that the Norwegian government has violated a constitutional environmental law which guarantees citizens’ rights to a healthy environment.

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