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'Wake-up call': microplastics found in Great Australian Bight sediment

The Guardian - Tue, 2018-04-24 04:00

Exclusive: Scientists say governments and corporations need to ‘legislate and incentivise’ to tackle ocean plastics

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Plastic has been found in ocean-floor sediments 2km below the surface in one of Australia’s most precious and isolated marine environments.

CSIRO scientists discovered the microplastic pieces while analysing samples taken hundreds of kilometres offshore at the bottom of the Great Australian Bight – a so-called “pristine” biodiversity hotspot and marine treasure.

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EU Market: EUAs sink again below €13 but stay in upward channel

Carbon Pulse - Tue, 2018-04-24 03:36
EU carbon prices lost ground for the third straight session on Monday, but recovered from an intraday three-week low as observers flagged the potential for further losses should EUAs break below a key technical support.
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Noxious gas found on planet Uranus

BBC - Tue, 2018-04-24 03:05
Hydrogen sulphide, the gas associated with the smell of rotten eggs, is detected in the atmosphere of Uranus.
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Graphene 'a game-changer' in making building with concrete greener

The Guardian - Tue, 2018-04-24 01:25

Form of carbon incorporated into concrete created stronger, more water-resistant composite material that could reduce emissions

The novel “supermaterial” graphene could hold the key to making one of the oldest building materials greener, new scientific research suggests.

Graphene has been incorporated into traditional concrete production by scientists at the University of Exeter, developing a composite material which is more than twice as strong and four times more water-resistant than existing concretes.

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GCF Planning Officer, Competence Centre for Climate Change and Environmental Policy, GIZ – Eschborn, Germany

Carbon Pulse - Tue, 2018-04-24 01:22
As planning officer for the GCF business sector in the Competence Centre for Climate Change and Environmental Policy, you will take on challenging technical and planning tasks in the development of projects for GCF. You will primarily advise and support GIZ’s field structure and the Client Liaison and Business Development Department in their dealings with GCF.
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Two men jailed for 26 years over UK-based carbon credit investment scam

Carbon Pulse - Mon, 2018-04-23 23:36
Two men have been jailed for a combined 26 years by a British court for selling vulnerable investors illiquid carbon credits via a ‘boiler room’ scam.
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Australian offset issuance steady, but market supply stays limited

Carbon Pulse - Mon, 2018-04-23 20:07
Australia’s Clean Energy Regulator handed out 222,554 carbon credits last week, but fewer than 7,000 went to projects not already under government contract.
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Australian minister flags potential use of Asia-Pacific forest carbon credits

Carbon Pulse - Mon, 2018-04-23 20:03
If Australia decides to open for using international carbon credits to meet its Paris target, forest offsets from the Asia-Pacific region might be among its target markets, according to Energy and Environment Minister Josh Frydenberg.
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Pruitt promised polluters EPA will value their profits over American lives | Dana Nuccitelli

The Guardian - Mon, 2018-04-23 20:00

Pruitt is one of TIME’s 100 most influential people for his efforts to maximize polluters’ profits

TIME magazine announced last week that Trump’s EPA administrator Scott Pruitt is among their 100 most influential people of 2018. George W. Bush’s former EPA administrator Christine Todd Whitman delivered the scathing explanation:

If his actions continue in the same direction, during Pruitt’s term at the EPA the environment will be threatened instead of protected, and human health endangered instead of preserved, all with no long-term benefit to the economy.

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Country Drive: Indonesian online beef sales, Minister won't reveal cause of pony deaths and Victorian wood mills risk closure

ABC Environment - Mon, 2018-04-23 18:52
A marketing company wants to sell Australian cattle direct to Indonesian consumers online.
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World’s newest great ape threatened by Chinese dam

The Guardian - Mon, 2018-04-23 17:13

The discovery of a new great ape species – the Tapanuli orangutan – has not stopped a Chinese state-run hydropower company from clearing forest for a planned dam. Conservationists fear this will be the beginning of the end for a species only known for six months.

Last November scientists made a jaw-dropping announcement: they’d discovered a new great ape hiding in plain sight, only the eighth inhabiting our planet.

The Tapanuli orangutan survives in northern Sumatra and it is already the most endangered great ape in the world; researchers estimate less than 800 individuals survive. But the discovery hasn’t stopped a Chinese state-run company, Sinohydro, from moving ahead with clearing forest for a large dam project smack in the middle of the orangutan population. According to several orangutan experts, Sinohyrdo’s dam represents an immediate and existential threat to the Tapanuli orangutan.

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Environment prize goes to Flint water activist

BBC - Mon, 2018-04-23 16:57
An activist who helped expose a water crisis in a US town has been awarded a prestigious environment prize.
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NEG will block renewables, favour hydro and big retailers

RenewEconomy - Mon, 2018-04-23 15:34
Industry experts back campaign opposing NEG, say it will skew the market further in favour of incumbents, stymie renewables, and favour coal.
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Smart Energy Council wages war against “anti-renewables” NEG

RenewEconomy - Mon, 2018-04-23 15:30
Smart Energy Council promises "ruthless campaign" to fight Malcolm Turnbull's NEG, which he says is "a lesson in how to do over the renewables industry while having acolytes fawn over the process."
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New solar “firming ” contracts to boost corporate demand for big solar farms

RenewEconomy - Mon, 2018-04-23 15:28
New "solar shape" and "solar firming" contracts expected to encourage more Australian corporate buyers into large scale renewables market.
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'Exploding ant' species found in South East Asia

BBC - Mon, 2018-04-23 15:08
The newly discovered canopy-dwelling ants are nicknamed after their bizarre defensive behaviour.
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$150,000 in community grants to help progress towards zero emissions

RenewEconomy - Mon, 2018-04-23 14:55
PRESS RELEASE A second round of grants to support non-profit organisations and individuals to undertake innovative projects to reduce greenhouse gas emissions was announced today by Minister for Climate Change and Sustainability Shane Rattenbury. “The inaugural round of the ACT Community Zero Emissions Grants Program was a success last year with a range of projects […]
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Country diary: perplexed by a sign of the tides

The Guardian - Mon, 2018-04-23 14:30

Afon Mawddach, Gwynedd: As I pondered my options, pools of water formed in the carpet of vegetation around my boots

Passengers for Morfa Mawddach station, to use the formal language of the announcement, “should inform the conductor that they wish to alight”. Your reward, if you do so, is a single narrow platform overlooking the salt marsh on the southern side of the Mawddach estuary. The station was once an important railway junction and, almost hidden by the undergrowth, an abandoned platform edge marks where a second track curled eastward towards Dolgellau. This line has been closed for more than 50 years, but the trackbed has found a new life as a route for walkers and cyclists.

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Tesla, Enphase lift household battery storage prices

RenewEconomy - Mon, 2018-04-23 14:01
Australian households are waiting for battery storage prices to fall further before buying. They may have to wait a little longer as Tesla, Enphase
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2018 Goldman environmental prize - the winners in pictures

The Guardian - Mon, 2018-04-23 14:01

From an anti-nuclear court ruling in South Africa to a campaign that nudged the Vietnamese government from coal to renewable energy, the winners of the world’s leading environmental prize are all grassroots activists who have taken on powerful vested interests

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